


Looking for a Man

by RedChucks



Category: Nathan Barley (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2019-09-23 09:38:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 29,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17077871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedChucks/pseuds/RedChucks
Summary: Daniel Ashcroft is dour, dishevelled, mess of a man in every incarnation so why not in the Victorian era as well. This story is doomed to failure, just so we're clear, but I'm giving you what I've got.





	1. Chapter 1

Daniel Ashcroft had a problem. For most of his life women had taken his surly uncommunicative nature for what it was - his personality. They had left him alone and that was how he liked it. Now, thanks to a resurrection among the young ladies of the London set of the works of Jane Austen, every young woman that Daniel encountered seemed to think his outward manner was hiding some sort of soft and gentle soul, that he was destined for a redemption arc, if they could but show him the error of his ways. Some of them were rather blunt in the detailing of such errors, in true Elizabeth Bennet style, and were summarily disappointed when Daniel did not in fact change his ways and confess his love, cowed and heart sore and romantically inclined. 

Daniel had in fact read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and had thoroughly enjoyed it, for the wit of the author was sharp and her portrayal of personalities was as enjoyable as it was searing, but that had been some years ago, when Daniel had been but eighteen, and he had since grown weary of being forever cast as Mr. Darcy, simply because he was a gentleman from the north of large estate, of tall stature and dour disposition.

One young lady had even dared to liken him to Heathcliff, and it had been all Daniel could do not to storm from the gathering in a rage at being likened so. He was not some abusive monster, and he certainly had no such feelings for his sister as the repugnant protagonist of Wuthering Heights showed.

What Daniel felt for his younger sister was great protectiveness, and often great annoyance, for even she was not above likening him to the mysterious and brooding men of the novels she so loved, and writing such works of fiction herself. But despite this Daniel loved her, she was his family, even when she was being insufferable or stubborn or any other word commonly used to describe a younger sibling. Daniel loved her, even when she was being entirely annoying, even though she rarely seemed to love him back. She was very nearly all that he had in the world and, he mused as he left his bedroom to face yet another tedious day, such a truth as that was rather sad, and rather lonesome.

“Have you read my latest manuscript, brother mine?” came her voice rather sharply, and rather suddenly, following him down the stairs of their London residence. 

Daniel jumped, he hadn’t heard her coming up behind him, wrapped up in his thoughts as he was, and tried to hide the action by hunching his shoulders more fiercely, but Claire’s snicker told him that she had indeed caught the action and found it most amusing.

“I-“ Daniel hesitated. He could think of a dozen things he could say to steal the bounce from his sister’s step, but he had no real desire to cause her pain. He always seemed to be the one who had to sit by her bedside and comfort her awkwardly as she cried after all. He didn’t want to be giving himself extra work if he could avoid it. “I-“

“You haven’t read it, have you?” Claire answered, the pout evident in her voice even though Daniel hadn’t turned to look at her. 

“I have,” Daniel lied, increasing his pace as he rounded the landing and headed toward the entrance hall, hoping to simply escape his sister through speed. What was the point of trousers after all if they could not help you stride away from your sister swiftly?

“You haven’t,” Claire accused him, following close behind. “You said you would and you haven’t! Daniel!”

Daniel reached the last step and strode toward the door but could not quite bring himself to be so unkind, not to his sister, and so turned back to her with a heavy sigh, wishing he was better with words, or at least with the spoken sort. She wasn’t a pretty young woman, his sister. She looked too much like her brother, Daniel thought ruefully, with her small brown eyes, long nose, and willful brown hair that refused to conform to the neat ringlets and buns that were thought so fashionable. Her hair was quite a true reflection of her personality in fact, Daniel mused, because Claire was willful and spoke her mind and was often ruled by her emotions, even when she tried to be logical and sensible and forward thinking. A good deal of that could perhaps be attributed to the fact that, after the death of their mother, the young Claire had sought to copy her older brother a great deal, which had often been detrimental to her development. Upon her coming out in to Society, for instance, she had refused the help of their aunt in finding a husband, asserting quite fiercely that she had no desire to be married quite so young, to some gentleman who would make her give up her pen and her passion, which had been a fine show of spirit in a girl of fifteen but was rather more worrisome in a woman of twenty-two. 

Claire had rather more passion than talent unfortunately, in Daniel’s opinion, but he would never tell her so. He had a reputation for being rude, it was true, but that was generally due to his lack of words, rather than the ones he did say. 

“I did mean to read it. I shall read it,” he told her, avoiding her eyes and focusing instead on the ridiculous width of her skirts. “But I’m rather busy, you see, and-“ he gestured vaguely at the street door, and went to take up his hat, only to find it missing from its hook. “Where has my hat got to? Jenkins!” He called, frowning in annoyance at the valet’s incompetence. The man was useless and Daniel hated the thought of having to even look at the man, who he felt sure was laughing at him behind his back and taking more than he was due in exchange for very little work. “Jenkins!”

“He’s not coming, Daniel,” Claire told him crossly, descending the stairs heavily and folding her arms across her chest in the same manner she had done when she had stubbornly asserted as a child that she had no desire to learn to paint or play piano or embroider cushions. “Nor the butler. I let them both go last night, for stealing the silver. Surely you heard the to-do?” Daniel could only frown in confusion and so Claire continued with a huff at her brother. “Did you not notice that no one came to help you dress today? Did you not wonder that there is no one here now and that the cook brought your breakfast up?” 

Daniel shifted uncomfortably and looked down at his scuffed boots, unwilling to admit that Jenkins hadn’t actually attended on him most mornings, especially if he woke early. The man was usually too hung over, and Daniel quite liked being able to see their old cook, Mrs. Wimple, each morning. Her company was more than tolerable. Still, it should have been him, not his younger sister, who realised that the silver was going missing and called their staff to account for it, he was seven years her elder after all, and he felt rather ashamed.

“You fired the housekeeper last week,” he pointed out sullenly, to cover his discomfort. “You can’t keep dismissing our staff, Claire, or no one shall wish to work for us.”

Claire only huffed and stood her ground, the square line of her shoulders causing Daniel to hunch himself over all the more. 

“She yelled at my maid until she cried,” she said in response. “And she kept tidying away my writing, as if it were unseemly. She came to us through Aunt Tabitha and I’m sure she was being paid by the woman, to try and make me more ‘eligible.’ She had to go.”

Daniel looked at the floor, the shame taking a tighter hold as he realised what his sister endured that he was ignorant of. 

“I suppose I should...” he stuttered awkwardly. “I suppose I should enquirer about some new staff then. If it’s alright with you?”

Claire sighed and stepped forward to straighten his collar and attempt to push his untidy brown curls from his face. Her skirt was pushing against his legs in a rather uncomfortable way and he was relieved when she gave up on her attempts to make him seem more presentable and stood back. 

“I thought perhaps,” she hesitated a moment before continuing. “Perhaps we might hire only one man. With only the two of us in the house we hardly need an army of staff. One man can surely help you dress in the mornings as well as managing our quiet home, don’t you think?”

Daniel noted the touch of anxiety in his sister’s voice, as well hidden as it was, and nodded thoughtfully. Despite the rumours that they were exceedingly wealthy, the truth was that they were not quite so well endowed with riches as people seemed to think. Daniel would not see a raise in his allowance until his thirtieth birthday, a date still some months away, and would not come in to his full inheritance until his father’s death. Claire likewise, would not receive an increase until she reached the same age, or until she married, which seemed a rather unlikely prospect given her current temperament.

They lived on a rather tight allowance for two young people thought of as among the wealthiest in the country, living in accordance with their father’s whim, for the man had been full of fear that his children would fritter away the family fortune whilst young and foolish if allowed to live alone in London rather than under his watchful eye, and so, while it was certainly true that the Ashcroft owned a very large amount of property, and had many investments, Daniel and Claire were forced to manage their combined finances carefully, else be summoned home again, to live dull lives in the middle of moorland with only their father’s reproaches and ramblings for company.

“Yes,” Daniel blurted suddenly, realising that his sister was awaiting a reply whilst he had been lost in thought. “Yes, quite right. I shall go out immediately to make enquiries.”

“Here,” Claire instructed, thrusting a piece of paper toward him, tutting at his scowl as he stared at his sister’s handwriting, thinking she meant to give him yet more of her writing to look over. “It is the address of a reputable agency. We hired my maid through them and she says they are very fair and trustworthy.”

“Your maid?” Dan snorted, with just the hint of a scowl, though he took the paper and stowed it in his pocket. “Is she our steward now? As I recall you fired our steward several years ago for doing nothing but ‘frittering away precious income’.” Claire scowled at him but Daniel’s mouth, once open, did not seem to wish to close. “Well I suppose a maid can do the job just as well. In fact, if this maid is so trustworthy perhaps you should ask her to read your dear novels, and leave me well alone.”

Claire’s response was to sigh angrily and turn away, though she returned a moment later with Daniel’s hat, tossing it to him carelessly to demonstrate her displeasure at her brother’s needless remarks.

“Perhaps I should,” she told him sharply. “And perhaps you had better get on with your errands, Darcy dear, before I flatten that hat of yours and your head with it.”

She spun on her heal in a great swish of skirts and marched from the room, no doubt to sit at her desk in the drawing room and write yet another ghost story in which the uncooperative older brother met a grizzly end.  
And Daniel turned to the door, feeling his mood sour even more than he had anticipated, and glared at the hat in his hands.

“I am not Mr. Darcy,” Daniel grumbled to empty room. “And you sister, are no Austen.”


	2. Chapter 2

Despite the fact that he had no desire to admit it, Daniel knew, from a quick glance at the street around him, that he was quite terribly lost, in the worst sort of way. He had been deep in thought, brooding really, as he tried to think of a way to tell his sister that he had no real desire to assist her in publishing her work. His own writing was not yet well known and he was struggling enough in finding people who would take it seriously, yet Claire seemed to think he was overflowing with contacts and would know how to properly critique her work. Daniel had no desire to let her see what a failure he actually was, or how fearful. Besides which, he had reasoned to himself as he wandered through the London streets, he wrote non-fiction, critiques of their broken society, whilst Claire only cared for fanciful stories and tugging on the heartstrings. He wasn’t sure that he’d be able to help her even if he truly wished to.

Not that Claire would believe that of course. Despite her huffing and sighing at him she still seemed to believe that Daniel was capable of greatness, just like their aunt, just like his father. He didn’t know how to tell her that it was a struggle to maintain the position of mediocre at best. He couldn’t even succeed at simple errands or in managing his tiny household, which was evident in the fact that he had somehow managed to become lost on his way to the agency and was now standing in a street of quite obvious ill repute. 

There were women standing in doorways, and several men too, he noted with a blush, offering their services to passers by, and there was noise and music of the roughest sort coming from the public houses that dotted the street, despite the fact that the hour was barely past midday. He was very much out of his element, and starting to panic, especially when he turned, searching for some sign of where he might be, and caught the eye of a very pretty young man with hair like dusty black velvet standing only a few feet away.

“You looking for something in particular, sir?” the man called, leaning against the frame of his door in a most louche, titillating, manner, his hip cocked and his smile inviting in a highly inappropriate way. 

“I-“ Daniel stuttered, unable to think of what he could say in response. The man looked young but the way he spoke, playful and soft and deep, suggested a man closer to Daniel’s own age, and his tone, so intimate seeming, completely stole from Daniel any words he might have spoken in rebuke. 

“D’you like what you see then?” the man called out again, teasing, and Daniel blushed as he realised that he had been staring, and that he was, despite this realisation, still doing so. The man however, only shrugged at Daniel’s intense gaze, and smiled wider. “Let me know what you’re looking for, sir. I’m the best there is. I’ll make it happen. Anything you want. I’m well flexible, me.”

Daniel fought to contain the whimper that wanted to escape his throat at such blatant flirtation but found he couldn’t bear the length of his own silence or the thought that he might appear a mute simpleton in front of such a man. 

“I’m looking for a man actually,” he said quickly. He had hoped his tone would come across as haughty, disinterested, and above such seediness as the man had implied, but instead he sounded rather strangled, his voice breathier than he liked, as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t. He ducked his head, allowing his hair to obscure his eyes, hoping it would hide his discomfort, but the strange man only laughed.

“Well you’ve come to the right place, I promise you,” he joked, swinging his hips slowly, showing off his fine, strong legs, and narrow waist in the process, his fingers tapping a swift rhythm against his prominent hip, drawing attention to the bulge at the apex of his thighs. Daniel shook his head quickly, tearing his eyes from the sight with greatest difficulty and focusing on the man’s boots instead, and the stacked heel that seemed rather higher than he was used to seeing.

“No,” Daniel explained with a huff of embarrassed laughter. “No, I mean I’m looking for a Man. A valet. I was supposed to go to a specific location, an agent. My sister wrote down the address but I… I may have lost it and… I fear I am very much not in the right place. I took a wrong turn somewhere and may have lost my way ever so slightly.”

“Oh,” the young man before him said in surprise, but the disappointment Daniel feared he would see did not come. A grin appeared instead, mischievous and friendly in equal measure, and Daniel wondered to himself why it should cause such a sudden flutter within his chest, and why he had feared causing this stranger disappointment. “Well that’s a shame, sir,” the man told him with a wink. “Still, each to their own I suppose.”

“I didn’t-“ Daniel found himself taking a step forward, and then another, until he was close enough to hear the rhythm of the man’s fingers. “I didn’t mean to insult your... your profession or...”

The man bit his lip against a laugh and Daniel felt the flutter increase, along with the heat in his cheeks at making such a fool of himself.

“Oh please don’t fret yourself, sir,” he said, beginning to drum the fingers of his other hand against the doorframe behind him in a more complicated, lighthearted rhythm, as if in lieu of the laugh he so obviously wanted to give. “It takes far more than that to insult me, I promise you.”

“Right. Well, I-“ Daniel floundered and looked up at the young man beseechingly. Words came so easily when all he had to do was write them down, or when his enraged mind spoke directly without the intervention of his near constant anxiety. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” the man replied gently, ceasing his movement and tucking his hands in to his armpits to keep himself still. “And I can help you out, as it goes. A good many of my family are in service and I know all the best agencies, if that’s what you were seeking. I can take you to the people that got my sister her job if you like, sir?”

Daniel hesitated, leaning himself away from the outstretched hand and winning smile. The hand wasn’t grubby, even if the fellow himself didn’t look particularly well kept, but Daniel wasn’t a fool (or at least, he liked to think of himself so) and knew that such men were not to be trusted. Like as not the fellow would pick his pocket or guide him down some dark alleyway to be set upon by thugs. It was almost a surety. 

“I ain’t gonna pick your pocket, if that’s what you’re worried about, sir,” the man answered as if reading Daniel’s very thoughts. “There’d be no point, see. Looks like some other lucky scamp’s already been and gone from your pockets.”

At that Daniel’s hands flew to his sides, panic and humiliation flooding through his veins and staining his cheeks as he patted himself down. His pocket book and coin purse were still in place but the pocket watch from his father and the cigar clipper his sister had gifted him for his last birthday were both gone, along with his handkerchief. He looked back up at the young man before him in dismay, expecting to see ridicule, but while there was humour in the large eyes and crooked grin, there was no scorn, and no malice. 

“Oh dear,” he said softly, berating himself instantly for such a ludicrous understatement, and began to back away, glancing about wildly for some landmark that would set him back on the path to home, knowing full well that none existed, but the young man grabbed his wrist, the grip of his small hand firm but not threatening as it held him steady and stopped him bolting. 

“I really don’t mean you no harm, sir,” he said with the utmost gentleness, the cocky bravado of earlier entirely gone from his voice. “My old mum would’ve beat me black and blue if she thought I was up to no good like that. I can get you back to the posh end of town, if that’s where you need to be, because honest to god you look in need of a guide, sir. I couldn’t rightly send you off on your own. You’d end up stripped to your skin and penniless in an hour, no matter how broad your shoulders or brooding your brow. Please,” he said, straightening himself up and affecting a more cultured accent, “allow me to be of assistance, sir. You have my word that your honour shall not be sullied.”

Daniel’s lips twitched. He knew he should refuse, but there was something about the man, his bright eyes and smile, the sharp angles of his crooked nose, the fall of his, honestly very pretty, long black hair, the earnestness in the way he held his shoulders, close to his body as if a little fearful that his kind spirit would be seen by all and sundry and taken advantage of. It called to him, and he trusted the man against all odds.

“Very well,” he said with a nod, trying to sound gruff and put upon rather than grateful. “Show me the way back to Park Street and there’s a shilling in it for you. But no funny business, you understand me?”

“Entirely, sir,” the man said with another bright smile, stepping down from the door step he had been stood on, sliding his hand over Daniel’s as he strode a few steps ahead to show Daniel the direction they needed to take. He was really very slim, Daniel noted as he took in the light way the man walked and the sway of his hips, and the cut of his clothes, which were very old, and rather odd - as if he had pulled pieces from several different wardrobes in several different decades, matching lace with worn velvet, and a brocade waistcoat that Daniel felt sure he’d seen his father once wear - but all carefully tailored to show off his form. Daniel wiped his palms on his trousers and licked his lips, not entirely sure why he felt so affected, and walked forward to meet the man with as much dignity as he could muster (which wasn’t really much at all). 

“Very good,” he muttered, frowning down at his guide to hide any trace of the butterflies that were flitting about most distressingly in his chest when he realised that the man’s eyes, fixed on his, were a delightful shade of pale, forget-me-not, blue. “And your name, sir?”

“Jones,” said the man, raising his brows and giving a nod, a smile playing around his mouth as he spoke, like there was some joke that only they two knew of. “And if you’ll step right this way, sir, I’ll get you back to the straight and narrow side of the town now. Before you come to any more trouble.”

“Thank you,” Daniel answered, breathless and unable to keep the smile from his own lips. I would appreciate that very much.”


	3. Chapter 3

As he sat in the rather dingy office, surrounded by the brown walls and brown furniture, listening to the ticking of the clock, rattle of carriages in the street, and the droning voice of the woman opposite him, Daniel wondered what sins he had committed to be trapped forever in mediocre, tedious, situations. He could recall a multitude of misdemeanors but surely, he thought, none of those things had been so bad as to warrant a life lived always on edge and ever anxious, for that was how he felt. The woman who ran the agency was horrible, in Daniel’s opinion, and seemed determined to ignore his instruction that he only wanted one man, not two or even three. Her mention of a coal boy had made him blush, though he had no clue why he should do so, and was forced to blame his body’s reactions on the young man who had guided him to his current location.

He sank down lower in his seat and pressed his hat more firmly against his lap as he thought of Jones, and how unbelievably pleasant it had been to walk in the man’s company. It was by far the most pleasant walk through London he’d ever had. It had been all too easy to forget that he was walking with, and talking to, a young man of ill repute. Though, if he was perfectly frank, Daniel had left most of the talking to Jones, and had been thoroughly amused by the man’s anecdotes and his assessment of the neighbourhood where he’d left Daniel to seek out a new valet. 

“I was trained for service myself, as matter of fact,” he’d informed Daniel brightly, half skipping in order to keep up with Daniel’s long-legged stride. “Worked at a right fancy house when I was a nipper. But then me da’, he died. And me mum followed him soon after. An’ my employer turned me out, see, for stealing bread, and so what was left of the family needed money sharpish, if you know what I mean. I have quite a hoard of younger siblings and well... the money’s not so bad. I really am very good,” he added with a wink, laughing breathily when Daniel blushed again. “My oldest sister eventually got a decent job in service, then the second did too, we found my two younger brothers good apprenticeships - they’re bright lads - but my two other sisters... they had a rather rougher time of it if you understand me, and they’ve got a new hoard of nippers between them now that need looking after and I,” he looked down for a moment, blushing and unsure of himself for the first time since their meeting, and Daniel touched the man’s elbow in a show of understanding, wanting him to continue but unsure how to show that Jones had no need to feel any shame in relating his tale. Daniel judged a great many people in his daily life, but had no desire to say anything scathing or judgmental about the man beside him. “Well, I was well in the game by the time most of my brothers and sisters could look out for themselves, wasn’t I?” Jones said with a smile that seemed just a little too bright. “Too old to learn nothing else. Soon I’ll be too old even for this. Not- I mean-“ he ducked his head and gave Daniel a rueful grin. “Not This, obviously. I’m not too old to guide poor lost posh chaps back to their own neighbourhoods. Maybe that’s what I’ll do when I’m too old to be considered pretty - guide rich folk around the city.”

“I don’t think such a day will ever come,” Daniel found himself saying, quietly, near reverently, as they rounded the last corner and found themselves on the dull street Daniel had been aiming for in the first place. 

The man bit his lip, letting out a short, breathy laugh through his nose as he looked up at Daniel through his black hair, seeming to use his locks in the same way Daniel did, to obscure his eyes and the emotions held therein. 

“It’s funny,” he said in a whisper, leaning toward Daniel in a way that seemed far too familiar and filled Daniel’s mind with the most strange, unfocused, desires, “what we say to strangers when we know we shall never see them again. You’d be amazed what some folk tell me,” he winked. “But I don’t usually tell so much as I’ve told you today.” He stepped back, the grin securely fixed upon his lips, bowed, and then held out his hand, palm up, waiting. “It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Ashcroft, sir. Good luck with your search for the right man, sir. I hope you find the one you need.”

Daniel felt himself beginning to blush furiously and fumbled for a coin to pay the man, wondering at the maelstrom of different emotions that he felt, when he usually only felt a mixture of shame and annoyance.

“Thank you for your help. And good luck,” Daniel responded, a little too sincerely for his own liking. “With your family.”

Jones had smiled, bright enough Daniel thought, to rival the very sun, and then turned with a wave and a skip in his step, and disappeared down the street. Which left Daniel with nothing left to do but enquire after a new valet, which should have been a simple task, and yet was proving to be anything but.

“If you don’t mind my saying, sir,” the woman opposite him said with a false smile. “I would caution you against reducing your number of staff. It might give the wrong impression, don’t you think? One would not wish to be seen as having less... income than one truly has, especially at this time of year, when your sister may be seeking to attract a husband? And while we do not have a large selection at present we do have staff of the highest standard. I pride myself on our rigorous appraisal of all applicants.”

Dan blinked. There were times when he hated London, not for it’s crowded streets or fog or grime or stinking river, but because the people were so very false. They all wished to be characters in a novel, it seemed - the shining protagonist - when in reality they were insipid, shallow, and near unbearable. The woman chattering away at him was one such person and he found himself repulsed by her pushiness.

He stood abruptly, giving a mumbled, unintelligible excuse for his need to leave immediately, and then turned from the room with only the slightest inclination of his head, before the woman on the other side of the desk even had a chance to rise from her seat. He descended the stairs hurriedly, barely apologising to the man he bumped with his shoulder as he did so and all but ran through the front door and out in to the street, gasping as if the building had been devoid of oxygen.

A small part of him had hoped, foolishly, that Jones might have returned, but the man was long gone, as Daniel had known he would be, and Daniel walked stiffly back to his house with his eyes on the ground, hoping to avoid contact with any person who might try to hail him and start a conversation. It happened far too often for his liking and he was sure that if he was forced to stop, in the state he was currently in, he would be very rude indeed, which would almost certainly get him in to some sort of trouble. And Daniel was in enough trouble already.  
He needed to think of some way to explain to his sister why he had not in fact hired a new valet, or butler, or any man at all - save for the one he had gladly paid to guide him to his destination. 

Jones, he thought wistfully. He was exactly the opposite of the kind of Londoners Daniel railed against, and wrote about, and he couldn’t help but think of the slim, smiling, young man, fondly. More than fondly, in fact, which was rather worrisome. 

Daniel was not ignorant of his inclinations but had never felt a need to act upon them in any concrete way, had never laid eyes upon a person who he thought he might like enough to risk the consequences for, until now. It probably had something to do with the man’s profession, he reasoned to himself. Thoughts of sex were unavoidable when your walking companion was a prostitute, but the nature of the man surely also came in to play. He had never felt so at ease with anyone before, so happy to listen to the thoughts and opinions of another. It was something of a revelation, but a painful one, for there was no reason for them to see one another again and the fellow had flitted from his life as quickly as he’d come.

It fit with the pattern of Daniel’s life as a series of missed goals and unfulfilled potential, which was some kind of comfort, he supposed. His life was at least consistent, if consistently disappointing. He felt his mood beginning to darken once more at such a thought, and set his eyes more firmly on his feet, only to all but collide with some Society mother and her two ‘eligible’ daughters, women he recognised in only the most vague sense as ones he had been unwillingly introduced to at some ball or other.

“Well, by my word!” the woman sniped as Daniel stumbled and attempted to get around the three ridiculous skirts without looking up or acknowledging the women properly. “Is that you, Mr. Ashcroft? By my word, you are the most impolite, ungentlemanly like gentleman I have ever met! Why anyone would think you’d been raised in the colonies!”

“Oh I quite agree,” he heard one of the daughters snip and so stood still, wet his lip, and waited for them to be done so that he could escape without causing the added offence of an impolite exit. “I must declare, Mr. Ashcroft, that you are the most prideful man I have ever had the displeasure to meet.” Strange, Daniel thought, that she sounded amused rather than offended, but he wasn’t overly surprised, especially when she continued and he recognised the pattern of her rebuke. “You are the most prideful of men and the last man I could ever be prevailed upon to marry, no matter how your aunt has tried to prevail upon me. Indeed I would not marry you, even with your enormous fortune, not even for the whole of Yorkshire.”

She seemed very pleased with herself and Dan heard a titter from her sister and felt his neck begin to flush hot with anger at being so publicly dressed down, for some empty headed girl’s enjoyment. 

“It is pleasing then, is it not,” he said at last, raising his head enough to glare at the young woman through his untidy hair, which was curling even more than usual with the promise of rain in the air, “that I have never once shown any interest in you, have no affection for you, nor have any intention of proposing to you. It must be a great relief to you, madam, that I do not even know your name, nor think it important enough to learn. It is a great boon to both of us, I’m sure. Good day.”

The mother made the most wonderful, affronted, noise as Daniel bowed his way out of their company and he found himself actually smiling as he turned the corner to his street, walking swiftly, but it didn’t last long. His sister heard him enter the house and was immediately talking to him so that Daniel felt quite put upon. 

“Did you do as I asked?” she enquired rather sharply. “Did you go to the agency about a new man to take over for Jenkins and Rogers?”

“Uh-“ Daniel hesitated, turning away to remove his hat and to avoid his sister’s sharp eyes. “Yes. Yes, I did.” 

“And?”

Daniel span back around to face his sister, though he couldn’t quite meet her eye. His mind was blank. So blank that it seemed to him like the hot pressed paper that he used to write his articles out, devoid of any life or colour, or clue that he could use to talk his way out of his current predicament.

“And....” he said slowly, licking his lips to buy himself just a second more. “And  
...they didn’t have anyone appropriate, so-“

“What, nothing?” Claire interrupted folding her arms again and tutting as she walked back toward the drawing room, leaving Daniel to follow like some sort of pet or maid. “I knew it! I knew they’d fob you off, Daniel! It’s all over town, the shortage of personal staff for hire! I heard just today that some new factory has led to an overwhelming number of household staff leaving the agencies in favour of factory work and evenings and Sundays free. Can you believe? Lucy will be mortified when I tell her but she wasn’t to know that they’d be unable to help. But you should have insisted, Daniel. Really. Tomorrow you shall have to go out to another agency and insist on something. We can’t be without a man, Daniel. We can’t answer our own door. It simply won’t do.”

Daniel nodded silently as he stood in the doorway of the drawing room, musing that evenings and Sundays seemed entirely reasonable to his mind, watching as his sister maneuvered her way around the furniture. Why was her skirt so wide? It seemed incongruous in a woman so straightforward, who had shunned most of the fashions of the day before this, to wish to make her life harder with cumbersome hoops and so many yards of fabric.

“Who...” Daniel blinked rapidly as he tried to gather his thoughts back in to some sort of order. “Who exactly is Lucy?”

Claire tutted, her favoured noise when dealing with her brother, and answered without turning to look at him, her pen already back in her hand.

“Lucy is my maid, Daniel. Oh, and do remember,” she called out as Daniel began to walk toward the stairs and the safety of his rooms. “We are dining out this evening. The Grey’s are having a gathering and our aunt has already confirmed that we shall be there so you must come.”

Daniel groaned. “But-“

“I cannot go alone,” Claire pointed out, head bent over her writing desk, her face serious. “I need an escort, brother, and the task is yours whether we like it or not.” 

Daniel let out another, louder, groan, though he knew there could be no argument. He simply wished to express to his sister how greatly he despised the Greys and their ‘gatherings’ and his aunt’s unwanted presence in their lives. She was constantly trying to sell his person to wealthy young ladies and he was thoroughly tired of it.

“Oh, and Daniel,” Claire called out, just Daniel’s boot was poised above the first stair, and he froze, sensing what her next words would be but unable to think of a single word to say in his defence. “Have you read my manuscript yet?”


	4. Chapter 4

The sun shone weak and grey through Daniel’s open curtains, promising a day of drizzling rain and stifling air and a smothering, weather induced, foul mood, though he knew Claire would claim there was difference between a rainy day depression and Daniel’s usual sourness of spirit, but he knew.

He groaned as he woke properly, stretching his muscles and feeling them protest, though their cries were secondary to the wails of distress issuing forth from his skull and he cursed his past self for drinking too heavily the night before, though he knew it had been entirely necessary. The Greys and their ilk were the very worst that London society had to offer and Daniel despised them. Their conversation was trite and superficial, their scheming for advantageous marriages was insulting to the mind, and their fashions were a constant insult to the senses. All Daniel could recall with any clarity from the previous night was the collective laughter, which had seemed to him like the braying of horses, and he winced when he recalled what some of that laughter had been in response to. 

First there been the young women, determined to trick him in to dancing, cornering him and talking at him until he’d had no choice in the matter, and fluttering their eyelashes and smiling so coyly, as if he might be tempted by them in the slightest. And Daniel hated dancing. Not for any moral reason, and not because he considered himself above such things as was often thought, but simply because he had no talent for it. He secretly would have liked to be able dance with confidence, because he was passionate in his love of music, but whenever he was forced to stand up with a young lady his muscles became stiff and his movements static and the very opposite of the grace that he craved and felt in his soul. He had never admitted such a truth however, not even to Claire, and while she had tried to teach him she had possessed little patience for the task and had declared him a lost cause, much to Daniel’s secret shame. 

And if the evening had been only upsetting because of the dancing then Daniel felt he might have coped, but the topic of conversation during their late meal had turned to the mysterious and scathing new writer in the increasingly popular journal “Primates”, and Claire had egged on the speculation, glancing at her brother all the while as his cheeks grew hotter and he tried and failed to hide himself behind his hair without success. He knew that Claire would love nothing more than to tell every acquaintance that her brother was the mysterious Mr. Pettifer whose writing had become the talk of the town, and celebrated by the very people Daniel had been trying to insult: the class he’d been born and raised in.

They had laughed like it was a fine joke, a piece of comedy rather than an insult to their characters and Daniel had struggled to keep himself calm when what he wanted to do was yell at them all that when he referred to them all as empty-headed parasites it was not a compliment or piece of sarcasm but the truth! Partaking freely of the wine had seemed the only option and at least when he was drunk the biting words of his aunt about his appearance and manners seemed rather distant and inconsequential. She had told him off soundly for the insult he had paid those horrid women who had stopped him in the street and it was just Daniel’s luck that the mother who had taken such offence at his lack of courtesy was a close friend of his ever interfering Aunt Tabitha. He had tried to be reasonable, or what he had considered so in such a state, but she had been exceedingly harsh in her putting down of his ego, and had pointed out to him that he was approaching thirty, with no great deeds to his name, no successes in business, and no wife, and nothing interesting to be said about his character at all. Daniel had quite agreed with her, which had of course only made her more cross, but Daniel had simply excused himself from the conversation, and had then stumbled out of the house in order to be sick on the footpath. His sister had taken over the task of berating him when it was left to her to assist him in to the carriage and then up the stairs to their door, railing against his drunkenness and telling him in the most horrid detail of what his consumption of alcohol would do to his body. She was quite sure he would fall victim to gout, but Daniel was beyond the point of caring, and Claire’s words had seemed distant and unimportant to his wine soaked ears. 

Her poor young maid had been left to man the door in the absence of a butler and the two women had been forced to shoulder Daniel’s weight between them up the stairs to his room. He had thought of it as a petty revenge at the time, but in the harsh light of morning he felt foolish, and a little ill, and there was no one to call upon to bring him anything to ease the discomfort as the distant chiming of the clock tower announced that it was only just gone six in the morning, which meant that even their cook wouldn’t even be at the house yet.

He had just decided to remain in his bed indefinitely when he heard a knocking, though it was some time before he realised that it was a knocking upon his front door rather than an extra layer of auditory hell conjured up by his hang-over. He wondered whether Claire would deign to answer it, or her maid, for they were the only other two in the house, but the knocking continued intermittently for some time until Daniel let out a tortured groan and rolled from his bed, determined to be quite impolite to whoever had decided to come calling so very early.

His resolve lasted right up until the moment he swung the door open and saw the young man, Jones, standing on his doorstep, his nervous expression melting in to one of surprise and joy at the sight of Daniel’s bedraggled face and creased shirt and trousers.

“Mr. Jones!” Daniel exclaimed, stepping aside to allow the man entrance in to his home, unsure of what else he could say. He’d never opened his own door to admit a guest before and wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed. “Do come in. I... how pleasant it is to see you again. I...”

Jones smiled wide at that and stepped in to the house, removing his hat and ruffling his hair with his other hand, seeming rather more bashful than Daniel remembered him being the day before. Then again, he reasoned as he watched the man’s eyes travel over the ornate furnishings of his home, Jones had likely never been granted entry to such a place, and his silence might therefore be taken as awe which, Daniel noted, made him feel strangely ashamed. 

“Mr. Ashcroft, sir,” he said eventually, recalling himself when his travelling gaze came back to where Daniel stood by the door, and Daniel watched him shift his stance back to the cocky pose of the previous day, hips thrust forward and hands in his pockets. “My apologies, sir,” he bowed with a nod of his head. “I wasn’t actually expecting to be granted entry to the house, truth be told. Or that I would see you again. Thought I was pushing me luck. And my apologies for the early hour, sir, only...”

“No, not at all,” Daniel said hurriedly, attempting to tug his clothing in to some semblance of respectability, though his waistcoat seemed to have lost the will to button. “As you can see, I am already dressed for the day and beginning to go about my business.”

“Right,” Jones replied skeptically, a mischievous grin spreading across his face that seemed on the very verge of laughter. “Except that I would wager you slept in those clothes, else you’ve been at the wine and brandy rather early today.” he chuckled, shifting his hip as he stood so incongruously in Daniel’s spotlessly clean, fashionable, and soulless home, his smile pulling at Daniel and daring him to deny the dark mood he had simply assumed would strike him as a matter of course. “It’s quite the fashion statement otherwise.”

Jones stood like a beacon of life and energy and colour in the stuffy entry hall, his attire similar the previous day, only this time the red velvet coat had been matched with a green velvet waistcoat and a paisley scarf about his neck that Daniel would wager was actually a woman’s shawl, for they were very much the fashion of the day. Jones’ dark trousers were tight, tight enough that Daniel couldn’t help but notice how shapely his legs were, and he felt his body respond, quite against his will.

He cleared his throat pointedly, and began to pull at his clothes once more, to hide the physical reaction that Jones’ presence had caused in his barely conscious body. In response Jones gave another of the chuckles that Daniel had come to associate with him in the most titillating way and recalled him to the man’s earlier words.

“Yes well,” he said, aware that his voice had become breathy but with no way to change such a fact, “there is a slight chance that I fell asleep fully dressed last night.”

He gave a sheepish smile but the one he received in return was dazzling and he found his own smile widening in response to someone who seemed so genuinely happy to be in his company. He felt certain that the silence was stretching out far too long but for once it didn’t feel stifling or uncomfortable and he tried to think of a way to extend the time they could spend together, and imagined that Jones was thinking along the same lines.

“I take it you were unsuccessful in your hunt for a man then, sir?” he said, leaning in with a wink, and doing nothing to alleviate the tightness in Daniel’s trousers. “No valet worth his station would allow you down stairs in such a state. And you’re in need of a shave, if you don’t mind my saying. Not that the roguish look doesn’t suit you,” he added quickly, taking a nimble step forward so that his hat, held in his hands, brushed against Daniel’s shirt, where his waistcoat hung open, the brush of it tantalising against his stomach. “I’m not complaining by any stretch... sir.” He licked his lips, looking up though scruffy dark hair and long, full, lashes. “I think it suits you. It’s very...”

“Please don’t mention Mr. Darcy or Heathcliff,” Daniel growled despite himself. “I don’t want to throw you out of the house but there’s no one else to do it and I shan’t hesitate, I’m telling you right now.”

Jones laughed brightly and reached out with his hand, letting it brush against Daniel’s elbow, a touch more intimate than any other Daniel could recall from his life.

“My mind had gone in a different direction entirely, I assure you!” he said with another laugh. “But I fear,” he added, his tone sobering quickly, “that I cannot stay long. I have... appointments to keep, I’m afraid.”

Daniel blinked at that, for it was truly very early in the day and while he could imagine wanting to satisfy such morning urges he could not image what sort of man would go out in search of it. 

“Really?” he answered, trying to appear unperturbed by their talk of the man’s profession. “That is a shame. But to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? And how exactly did you find me? And-“ he faltered as his stomach growled hungrily, his small brown eyes widening in embarrassment for a moment before Jones’ own stomach gave an answering rumble, which caused them both to smile again. “And would you care to accompany me to the kitchen? I fear Mrs. Wimple, our cook, may not be there yet, but I’m sure we can find something to satisfy our... our hunger?” 

The laugh that escaped Jones’ mouth at that moment, almost a giggle, was full of delight and thoroughly wicked, and Daniel felt a strange tickling pride ripple through him at having been so successful in the lighthearted verbal jousting.

“I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble, sir,” Jones replied, catching Daniel’s eye for a moment before turning quickly away, fingers tapping an anxious rhythm against the brim of his hat, but Daniel felt emboldened by their interaction and pulled himself up to stand a little straighter and gestured for Jones to join him in walking toward the back of the house.

“Not at all, Mr. Jones, it would be a pleasure. Please.”

Jones seemed to consider the proposal for a good long moment, ten seconds at least by Daniel’s count, swinging his hips as if by habit, before the grin returned and he nodded his assent. Daniel found himself unable to smother his own smile, and felt ludicrously happy as they entered the narrower passageways used by the staff, for Jones’ arm was bumping lightly against his in such a friendly, unthreatening way. It was an entirely new experience for Daniel, to feel so at ease, as was the unoccupied kitchen, and he faltered for a moment, the creeping self-doubt reasserting itself as he realised he did not actually know how to prepare any food, or even a cup of tea for the two of them, but Jones stepped forth and managed the whole affair with ease, so that within minutes they were sat comfortably at the table with a pot of tea and two plates of bread and butter. 

“So,” Daniel began, when they were comfortable, “since our time is limited, what brought you to my door today? I fear it was not any desire to make me tea or witness my inability to dress myself properly. I’m not what one would call pleasant company.”

Jones smiled again, ducking his head to hide the action beneath his hair, though Daniel saw it plainly as his lips pressed against the rim of his teacup. 

“I don’t know, sir. I’d say you were awfully pleasant.” He sipped his drink and sighed happily. “But I did pay this call with more in mind that just your company, that’s true. You see, I managed to track down these, and I thought you might like them back.”

At that he reached in to his pocket and produced Daniel’s stolen pocket watch and cigar cutter and held them out for Daniel to take. A sudden nervous fluttering erupted in his chest as he reached out and his fingers touched Jones’ palm, a fluttering which eventually settled in to his gut, and then lower still, when Jones brought his other hand forward to slide over the back of Daniel’s until his one, long hand was encapsulated by Jones’ two smaller, yet stronger, ones. He allowed Jones to turn his hand, so that the watch and cutter fell in to his palm, but then removed his hands slowly, letting his fingers trail across Daniel’s in a way that seemed sensuous, yet not affected.

Daniel, on the other hand, was significantly affected by the action, and withdrew his hand with the greatest difficulty, wishing for the first time in his life that the physical intimacy he was experiencing would continue.

“Thank you,” he whispered, unable to alter, once again, the breathiness of his voice, or the need that was evident within it. “But how did you-”

“Well,” Jones said with a wry smile, withdrawing his hands and a placing them under his chin, his elbows propped on the table in a manner that Daniel had so often wished to copy that he immediately did so. “The lad who took them, see,” Jones explained. “I know him. And I heard him bragging about it - a foolish thing to do ‘round our way. So I took him aside and negotiated for their safe return.”

“Oh,” Daniel murmured as his brain tried to sort through the facts of the story. “Oh. I do hope it did not put you too greatly out of pocket?”

Jones ducked his head again and shrugged. “Well, it cost me a slight bit more than that shilling you gave me, but I dare say I’ll manage. That said, of course,” he looked up, the smile falling away as his delicate blue eyes met Daniel’s. “I really should be going.”

Daniel wanted to say no, to insist that the man stay right where he was, but knew he could demand no such thing and nodded dumbly for a moment as Jones pushed his chair back and stood. He jumped to his feet when he realised there was no one to let the poor chap out, but Jones moved toward the kitchen door rather than the street one, and Daniel felt himself wilt somewhat as he realised that they were at the point of goodbye with so little preamble.  
“You must allow me to repay you for this,” he insisted, hating the bluntness of his tone, and his lack of ability in negotiating such social situations. “The watch was a gift from my father, the year my mother died. The cutter was likewise a gift, from my sister. They hold... sentimental value, I suppose, though I would not easily admit to it. You must...” he patted his pockets and quietly cursed when he realised that his pocket book was upstairs, and that Jones already had his hand on the kitchen door. “No, wait. You must allow me to pay you back for your kindness.”

“It’s quite alright, sir,” Jones said with a smile so bright Daniel felt sure it would leave his skin sunburnt. “It was a pleasure to be of service, sir. Perhaps next time.”

And with that he was gone, stepping out swiftly and giving a short bow first to Daniel and then to the very surprised Mrs. Wimple, who had just arrived for the day and remarked that she had never seen Daniel out of bed so early in the morning.

“Who was that gentleman? If you don’t mind my asking, sir?” she queried as she began bustling around the kitchen, preparing Daniel his usual breakfast. “I thought I knew all your friends and acquaintances in the city, sir, but I didn’t recognise him.”

“He found my watch,” Daniel told her simply, sitting back at the table and turning the object over in his hands, feeling warm and comfortable in a way that was foreign, but beautifully welcome. “He came to return it to me.”

“Very good sir,” the cook nodded as she bustled about. “I thought perhaps he was here to replace Mr. Jenkins,” she chortled, shaking her head as if was a most ludicrous thought. “Will you be going out today then? To enquire about a new man?”

Daniel knew that the correct answer would be yes, and that he had no excuse for not going, save that the last twenty-four hours had left his mind brimming with ideas and desperate to write. It would certainly annoy his sister exceedingly if he were to delay the errand by even half a day, which just about decided it for him.

“No,” said decisively, his eyes fixed upon the watch as his fingers buzzed at the memory of Jones’ hands upon them. “No, I have some business to attend to, and then a dinner. I fear I shall not have time.”


	5. Chapter 5

As he walked from the dining room to the parlour of the Yeahman’s home Daniel noted quietly to himself that he was far more at ease (if still not entirely easy) than he had been at a similar hour the night before. It was likely because his aunt was not present, nor his sister, but also because the company was, by and large, more palatable.

This was where Daniel preferred to be - at a party made up of poets and philosophers and social personalities - though he hated that his desire to interact with an artistic set might be too obvious, and viewed in the wrong light given his high birth. There was something freeing in being known only by his pseudonym, and of rubbing shoulders (metaphorically) with those his aunt would deem unclean and unacceptable. It was more addictive than any other poison Daniel poured in to his body, to associate with those who lived lives that were colourful and strange, and he only wished it could be free of the social climbers and money-grubbers who had been creeping in around the edges.

He had been sat at the table next an actor on the one side, a flamboyant fellow who had talked rather too much for Daniel’s liking; but on his other side his companion had been a rather mysterious woman with the darkest skin Daniel had ever seen. She was a beauty by any standard, but with the added bonus of a sharp mind as well and Daniel conversed with her with a strange feeling of delight, matched with an impending sense of doom, for such moments were rare in his experience and too often ended badly.

“And what is your profession, Mr Pettifer?” she asked, taking his arm gracefully as she walked beside him. Her English was impeccable and her accent was lightly French, Dan noted, his curiosity piqued in spite of himself. “I am new to London and have not yet learned all of the social stratas.”

“Well,” Daniel answered slowly, considering. “To wider society I fear I am considered a gentleman, though I have little talent for it. But here... Jonathon Yeahman is my editor. I write essays for “Primate”, his recently purchased journal. Though I am not yet sure whether I have any talent for that either.”

“You are a writer?” she asked, tilting her head to view him from a different angle. “Yes, I can believe that. You have that way about you” 

“And yourself?” Daniel queried, raising an eyebrow to match her own questioning look. “You are quite the mystery Madamoiselle. Where did you call home before London?”

“Paris,” she told him and smiled when she saw Dan’s slight frown. “I was born and raised in France, Mr. Pettifer. And I tell you that because I have grown weary of every person I meet asking me where I came from ‘really’, or ‘before Paris.’ You English have no skill for subtlety, though you think yourselves masters of it. Most of the time it is an entertaining sport to watch, but no so much when the focus is my family and my skin.” 

Daniel nodded and considered himself fairly warned. As one who hated the prying of others he completely understood her annoyance. 

“Is that why you are here tonight then?” he asked, speaking softly to ensure they wouldn’t be overheard by the wider party. “Is that why you consented to attend Jonatton Yeahman’s party when you are so obviously superior to every person here in rank and manners? To watch the entertainment as we go about our foolishness?”

“We all have our vices,” she shrugged elegantly. “Yourself for instance, Mr. Pettifer. Are you a friend of Mr. Yeahman?”

“I would not say friend,” Daniel answered quickly, for the man left much to be desired. He was a sensationalist, bent on making money rather than broadening minds, and Daniel was not overly pleased with the changes he was making to the once serious tone of the magazine he had purchased, but by the same token he had no desire to speak openly against the man. He was the first to have accepted Daniel’s writing for publication and to supported him in the endeavour. He was Daniel’s patron and he could not afford to lose him. “He is my employer. He is one of the few people in this city who is willing to let me write about the evils of our society as I see them. At a time when we are plagued by the ‘Society for the Restoration of Manners’ and their policing of every free thought and deed, there are few who would allow someone as... blunt, as myself to write for them,” he told her with an apologetic smile. “And he knows that I am rather antisocial, which he finds amusing, and so he invites me to parties thinking it makes me uncomfortable.”

“And does it?” the lady asked as they came to the parlour and he guided her toward a seat.

“Quite often,” he told her honestly. “I know few among us suffer fools lightly but I seem to bear the frustrations they cause with less...” He scowled at his inability to find the right word. It was so easy when he was writing, to pluck the word he wanted from the ether and set it down, and yet when he was trying to speak, too often words failed him.

He was, at that moment however, saved the embarrassment of being unable to finish his sentence by the appearance at his side of one of the very fools he could not abide.

“Pettifer!” the man yowled, thrusting his hand in to Daniel’s and shaking it too vigorously. “My old chuckaboo! I read your last essay on the vices of frivolous fiction! You do bubble around against humanity so beautifully, don’t you? Thoroughly enjoyable read. Completely my opinion!”

Daniel extracted his hand and leaned back. He couldn’t tell if the man was in earnest, and had no wish to converse with him to find out, though the man seemed determined to speak to him. He felt the discomfort mount, like fluid within his lungs, as the man continued to speak, leaning in to his space and laughing in such a way that made Daniel want to put up some sort of physical barrier. 

“Mademoiselle Sasha,” he said, turning to the young woman beside him and hating himself for throwing her to the dog, so to speak, even as he continued with the introduction, desperate for a way to separate himself from the man before him. “Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Nathan Barley. He runs a publishing house, specialising in... novels,” he said pointedly, “for want of a better description. Fiction.” By the twitch of her lips Daniel figured she knew to what he was referring, and the look she gave Barley was haughty and unamused. “Mr. Barley, Miss Sasha.”

“A pleasure!” the obnoxious man bellowed in an accent that Daniel struggled not to find offensive. It was not that he was against to the accents of the working class, far from it. It was the fact that the man attempted to affect the tone of a lower class merchant or man of rough trade when he was clearly cut from the same gold-edged cloth as Daniel, and that he did so very badly. “Miss Sasha you are quite the dark beauty aren’t you! Do you know, I have a man at the publishing house of your shade. An ‘African’! Goes by the name of Smanks. D’you know him?”

The look Miss Sasha gave him was scathing, her eyebrow arched and perfect lip curled in distaste as she angled her body away from him.

“Africa is a large continent, and one I have not had the pleasure of ever visiting. And I am not acquainted with every person ‘of my shade’, Mr. Barley. Are you on speaking terms with every pasty faced fool in England?”

“Probably,” Barley guffawed. “Just as Pettifer here seems to be in with all the jammiest bits of jam in London, of which you, my fine lady, are among the most spreadable!” Daniel wanted nothing more than to turn his back on the man and walk away but Miss Sasha still had her hand on his arm and seemed to be watching Mr. Barley with a sort of horrified fascination, like one might watch crows pecking at the corpse of a rodent, sickened yet unable to look away. “Why I saw him only a week ago, out in a rather fine part of Town,” Barley continued, “walking with a young woman of very fine figure. I was about to hail him but he was pulled by that young lady in to a haberdasher’s and I couldn’t, for my honour, go in. But she was bang up the elephant and no denying it! I didn’t know you had a wife, Pettifer.”

Daniel watched the man stop for breath and wished he could have talked just a little longer and suffocated himself. He was sure Barley invented half of the slang he used himself, for it seemed completely incomprehensible. He seemed to think the key to sounding like a man of the people was to jabber and Daniel felt offended on behalf Jones, who was the man Barley seemed to be attempting to imitate. His free hand crept in to his waistcoat pocket, to touch his pocket watch, and he considered giving no answer, for what did he care what embroidered stories might be told of Daniel Pettifer? But he hated the thought that Barley might believe he was right about anything. 

“That woman was my sister, so I would thank you to watch your language, sir,” he snapped. “Especially since you are also in the presence of a lady.” 

The man laughed, actually laughed, and Daniel tilted his head, trying to hide the burning of his cheeks behind his hair as he gripped his watch, removing it from his pocket to clutch to his chest.

“Oh, but of course!” he snorted. “You are such a laugh! Pettifer, the man with the sharpest pen in London, telling me to mind my words! Ha! But your sister?” he raised his eyebrow suggestively and Daniel felt the urge to punch the man in his fool mouth. “Jonathon told me about this mysterious sister of yours, Pettifer. She’s a budding young author, I heard tell. You should send her my way. I do so love discovering new talent.”

Daniel wasn’t actually aware of his arm moving, or of Miss Sasha gliding gracefully out of the way, or even of his fist colliding with Mr. Nathan Barley’s face - all of that seemed to happen in a strange, soundless, vortex - but in the aftermath, when the pain bloomed in his hand, he felt too aware, and overwhelmed by the noise and the light and the feeling of it all, and stumbled from the party in a panic, the shrieking and laughter filling his ears and piercing his mind, like the prongs of a fork scraping against a china plate.

He wanted to be sick but he hadn’t drunk nearly enough for that and so he ran instead, trying to outrun the throbbing in his hand and in his head. He rounded several corners, let his feet take him where they willed, but eventually collapsed, his chest on fire and his legs weak. He looked up, knowing that he was once again horribly, horribly lost, and that this time there would be no kind face looking back at him, offering to guide him back to familiar streets.

He was such a fool. Yeahman thought Barley was a wit, one of the finest men in London, and Daniel had hit him square in the jaw. He had just doomed his career as a writer when he’d barely started. He was a fool. When he’d arrived that evening he had handed his latest essay to Yeahman, brimming with pride for what he had written, and his editor had smiled and thanked him and Daniel had felt hopeful, against all odds, even despite the drizzling rain. He should have known it would not last.

The road he found himself on was surprisingly busy given the weather and the hour, and Daniel opened his hand to look at the watch he had been holding all that while, the one Jones had returned to him, and flicked it open, expecting to see the time, but finding a folded scrap of paper within instead, upon which was written:  
“Mr. M. Jones  
27 Withnail Way  
If you’re ever so inclined”

The words were clumsily shaped, childish, but then, Daniel supposed, there hadn’t been much opportunity in Jones’ life for him to learn such things. Daniel didn’t quite feel his hope return, but as he reread the simple message something stirred within his breast that was similar, if weaker, and he decisively caught the eye of a man passing him in the street before he could lose his nerve.

“Excuse me, sir. Could you point me in the direction of Withnail Way? Please?”


	6. Chapter 6

Daniel had needed to stop and ask for directions five times before he found himself at the entrance to Withnail Way, and was near desperate when he finally saw buildings that he recognised.

The street was near empty, though there was light shining from the ale houses and places that Daniel assumed were brothels, and the few people out of doors were hurrying with heads down to avoid the increasingly heavy rain. Daniel didn’t run, he was beyond caring and soaked to his very bones, and stumbled forth, slipping in the mud and the muck, with no idea what he would say or do when he reached his destination, unable to even picture the scene that would greet him when he found the abode of Mr. M. Jones. 

Despite his lack of expectations Daniel was perturbed when what he reached number twenty-seven and saw the street door ajar, a dim glimmer of light tripping down the steep steps beyond, and the sensation doubled when he stepped closer and heard the sound of raised voices and a suspicious, heavy, thud. 

For a moment he considered turning away, whilst his body seemed determined to remain frozen and useless in the street, but the sounds that followed the thud, a braying laugh that made his knuckles tingle at its similarity to Barley’s, and a crack that might have been wood splintering, were too ominous to ignore. At those sounds his body leapt in to action and he was half way up the stairs, taking them two at a time, before he even properly comprehended what he was doing. 

He burst in to the room at the top of the stairs, his hindbrain assessing the situation whilst the rest of his being seemed overtaken by an animalistic rage and swung in to action. There were three men standing in the small apartment, a space barely large enough for the bed pushed up against the wall let alone so many people, and on the floor between them was the prone form of another man, a slight creature with long black hair, in a torn white shirt and not much else. 

Daniel had never shown much talent for fencing, though his father had insisted on his learning when he turned ten. At the same time the groundskeeper on the family’s estate had introduced him to the sport of boxing, understanding more about the young Daniel’s character perhaps, and the height and heft he would one day sport, and Daniel had become rather proficient over the years, a fact which he put to good use as the three assailants moved toward him.

None were so tall or broad shouldered as he, and so Daniel swung his fist at the first, hitting him in the jaw and propelling him in to the man behind. They fell backwards, stumbling over their victim, dropping the chair legs they both wielded, and hit the ground with an almighty crash, but Daniel paid them no heed, save to worry that Jones had not been further injured, for the third man had come upon him. He took a hit to the chest that stole the breath from his lungs as the man dodged forward, but caught the man in the temple in return, his anger boiling over and escaping him in a roar that frightened the men who had recovered their footing and were coming back toward him. They stopped in their tracks and Daniel supposed that they hadn’t bargained on anyone coming to Jones’ aid when they had set upon him, let alone one who probably looked half crazed - drenched and bedraggled, bellowing like a beast and swinging his fists. Instead of continuing the fight they grabbed their fallen friend and began to back away, circling around Daniel until they were near enough to the door to make a run for it.

“We was only doing our job, gov,” one told him, his hand held out in surrender. “He messed with our business, cost us profit, so we messed with his. Not our fault ‘is body’s ‘is business.” 

Daniel watched the man spit, the blood streaked glob hitting the rough wooden floor with a hideous splat, before he launched himself forward and pushed the man viciously out of the room and on to the stairs. 

“Well his business is my business now,” he growled, watching the men stumble, dragging their unconscious friend between them. “So go! And don’t you dare come back.” 

He didn’t waste any further time on them, only noting the fading of their footsteps as he moved back in to the tiny apartment and knelt by the man huddled in the centre of the floor. He reached out his hands but stopped short of touching, unsure what the best course of action might be, how he could check the extent of the injuries without causing further pain, or fear. He had never been adept when it came to such things, to physical acts of care. His sister had told him often enough through her tears that he was rather terrible at giving comfort, and he knew it was true, but there was no way he could leave Jones in such a state. He was breathing at least, Daniel could see that, and so, with the utmost care, he rolled the man on to his side, and then his back. 

He was so very beautiful, Daniel realised, as Jones’ face was revealed to him, even marred as it was by the bruise that was forming under his eye. He squashed the thought down, berating himself for such an inappropriate reaction, and turned his attention to the task of trying to ascertain how badly injured Jones might be. 

“Jones,” he whispered timidly, brushing a lock of hair away from the man’s forehead, but withdrew his hand hurriedly when Jones’ large pale eyes opened and fixed on his. “Oh! You’re-“

“Mr. Ashcroft?” Jones asked, blinking slowly as he reached up to wipe the trickle of blood from his nose. His eyes widened when he removed his hand and saw that his fingers were stained red and he struggled to raise himself from the floor. “Mr Ashcroft, sir! Are you hurt, sir? Did they hurt you? Where’ve they gone?”

He sat up, or tried to, but only managed to bring himself up on to his elbows before he let out a gasp and seemed about to faint again. Daniel caught him awkwardly and Jones clutched at Daniel’s coat, tangling his hands in the fabric as his pale face turned a frightful shade that was near green. 

“They left,” Daniel whispered, helping Jones to sit, shuffling his body around so that he was sat just behind, so that the smaller man could lean back against him. The blood was racing in his veins at being so close to the man when he was so naked, clothed only in his ripped shirt and nothing else. “I... I scared them off I think. You’re safe now.”

Jones let out a snort at that, but it became a wince when he tried to turn, and Daniel’s hand came immediately to support him, his protective nature rearing its head once more. 

“Safe for now,” Jones scowled darkly, groaning again as he shifted to look up at Daniel and brought his hand shakily to Dan’s unshaven cheek. “By God but they got me good this time. Everything hurts. How’d you scare them off? What did you say?”

“It weren’t what he said!” a small voice suddenly called out, causing both men to jump and Jones to let out a grunt of pain as he swiftly removed his hand from Daniel’s cheek. They both looked toward the voice and soon saw the face peaking around the door, small and pointed, grubby around the mouth, but with eyes the same shade of blue as the man held in Daniel’s arms.

“What d’ya mean, Jonnie?” Jones asked him gently, and as the child entered the room Daniel felt there could be no doubt that this child was a Jones, from his stance to his mop of dark hair, and it brought a smile to his lips for a moment, before he recalled himself to the situation. 

“I mean he didn’t just scare ‘em off, uncle. He biffed ‘em. Three against one and he still beat ‘em! I watched it but none of ‘em saw me.”

“You snuck up here?” Jones asked suddenly, his voice sharper than before though Daniel could feel the shaking of his body and how much it was straining him to speak with any strength or volume in his voice. “You can’t sneak up here, Jonnie. You know the rules. And you could have been hurt, those men weren’t nice people, they would’ve hurt you, love. D’you understand me? Your mum must be frantic!”

“They were too busy hurtin’ you to notice me,” the boy countered, pushing his chin out defiantly, and Daniel found it challenge to keep his face serious and detached as the family squabble continued. “And mum is frantic, but ‘bout you! We heard the thumpin’ and bangin’ and yellin’ an’ she looked ready to cry so I come see what’s happened. And they was beating you right in, uncle!”

“Yes, I do recall that bit, thank you,” Jones said through gritted teeth, his breathing becoming laboured, and again Daniel wondered at the extend of his injuries, but the little informant before them wasn’t quite finished with his report and Daniel couldn’t bring himself to interrupt a child.

“Well, then this big gentleman came up the stairs and I hid myself sharpish so he didn’t see me, and I was right worried for you, uncle, but then he went at the bad men and took them each out with only one punch a piece! It was brilliant, sir!”

He addressed his last comment to Daniel directly and he found himself blushing at the awe in the boy’s voice and face. 

“Thank you,” he replied awkwardly, for want of anything better, but recovered himself somewhat when Jones’ attempt to move to face him caused another grunt of pain. “But shall we save the tales for later? I need to get your uncle warm and dressed, and somewhere safe. Do you think you could find a pair of trousers for him?”

“There’s no need to fuss,” Jones muttered, though his didn’t attempt to take his weight from Daniel’s chest again, which was, Daniel thought, a truer indication of how he felt than his words. “I’m perfectly alright. And I’m due downstairs for supper now in any case. I’m sorry you had to see all that, sir. I wasn’t expecting you to...” he hesitated, licked his lips, his breathing becoming ever more ragged. “I wasn’t expecting you, sir.” 

Jonnie appeared at that moment, holding aloft a pair of trousers, and though Jones tried to insist that he could manage alone, it took the three of them to get him dressed enough to be considered decent, and to get him standing. His groans and protests were mostly drowned out by his nephew’s chatter however, as the lad informed Daniel the men he’d biffed were nasty sorts who he’d seen before, and that as the next oldest man in the house after his uncle, it had been his duty to investigate, to protect his mum and auntie and sisters and cousins, and could Daniel teach him how to box like that because it would come in dead useful.

“Jonnie,” Jones said with gentle firmness as he stood unsteadily, still clutching Daniel’s coat, his slim body shaking fit to fall apart. “The box on the mantle. Can you check it for me, please, love?” 

The boy nodded and as he wandered over to the other side of the apartment, pushing aside the rows of washing strung from the ceiling that seemed to take up most of the cramped space, Jones turned to face Daniel, still leaning against him, his arms wrapped around himself tightly. “I am sorry, sir. I didn’t rightly expect you to turn up. Jonnie wrote the note for me, on account of my not being able to write so neat or small, but I didn’t think...” he licked his lips again and Daniel found himself imitating the action, hypnotised by the man’s tongue as it ran across his swollen bottom lip. “I’ll have to reschedule is all, sir. If you don’t mind?” 

Daniel felt his cheeks begin to burn, and wondered how he could explain that he hadn’t come for any carnal reason (at least not primarily) but had barely opened his mouth before Jonnie was back their side, the box open in his hands and conspicuously empty.

“It’s all gone, uncle. It were on the floor and open and no coins about that I could find.”

For a moment Daniel was confused as he looked between their two faces and the dismay written so clearly there on, but the confusion soon gave way to terror as he saw tears build up in Jones’ eyes in the moments before he squeezed them tight and turned his face away. 

“Doesn’t matter, love,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Not your fault, don’t you fret, I’ll make it up. How about you put out the lights and help us down stairs now, there’s a good lad.”

It took a good deal of time to make their way down the stairs, as Jones feet were bare, and the steps uneven, and the poor man’s left ankle was exceedingly tender. He was quite covered in brightly blossoming bruises, as Daniel had discovered as he’d helped him in to his clothes, and he did not doubt that they would continue to get worse throughout the night, and that they were causing a good deal of pain, even if Jones refused to acknowledge the fact. 

He did at least allow Daniel to help him down the steep steps, whilst his nephew darted about putting out the lights and locking the door. Daniel had spared a glance for the three other doors on that floor, all shut tight against the night, and wondered at the folk who must have known what was happening, and yet chose to do nothing. 

When they reached the bottom of the stairs Jonnie skipped ahead of them, guiding their way along the dark hallway to a door that Daniel judged to be directly beneath Jones own room. No wonder the boy had come running, Daniel thought with a frown, for surely they would have heard every thud and yell. The building was shabbily built and damp and Daniel felt out of place and very far removed from the world he knew, but instead of fear or any insecure awkwardness, he felt a thrill of excitement. He wanted to see where and how the mysterious and alluring Jones lived.

Before they reached the door however, Jones stopped and turned to him with a rather forced smile on his pale face, as if there might be horrors awaiting him that he didn’t want Daniel to see.

“I appreciate your helping me tonight sir, honest. And if you come back in a day or two I swear I’ll be right as rain, sir, but...” he looked up at Daniel imploringly, the yellow light from the open doorway reflecting in his eyes and turning them a strange shade, like copper just on the turn to green. “You should be getting home now, sir. It’s a fair walk back to your neighbourhood and I’m sure your own family will be missing you, and I wouldn’t want to keep you. Well... I...”

“He’ll do nothing of the sort,” came voice from the doorway, which again made them both jump, but it was a woman’s voice rather than a child’s this time, and when Daniel looked up he saw a young woman with dark brown hair and a fierce expression on her tired face. “It’s already gone midnight and if this is the ‘tall, wild-haired, handsome gentlemen with no sense of direction’ who you said you met yesterday then he won’t be able to find his way home before dawn,” the woman said rather tartly, giving Daniel a look that he couldn’t quite figure out, “and you won’t last much longer on your feet by the look of you, so get inside and tread lightly. The children are trying to sleep.”

Daniel nodded hurriedly, he recognised a sister in a temper when he saw one, but Jones only sighed and allowed Daniel to help him hobble forward to kiss his sister’s cheek before finally entering the apartment. 

“Well, Mr. Ashcroft, sir,” he said with affected brightness. “It seems we’ve been told. So without further ado, I bid you welcome to the House of Jones.”


	7. Chapter 7

Daniel had never understood the draw of the family unit. He loved his sister it was true, and felt a muted respect for his father, he had been confused by his mother, but that was as far as it went. He had read books of course (he wasn’t opposed to all fiction) and had observed, rather sadly, that the family bonds that were so often written of were completely foreign to him. He had thought it some sort of literary device, forever written about but never true in life, but was starting to see that perhaps he had been wrong. The Joneses seemed to love each other very much and the longer Daniel spent in their company the less he wanted to ever leave.

The Jones family lived in a single room apartment, though Jones admitted that he did sleep in the apartment above when he was too tired to do otherwise, though he said he would rather not, and didn’t usually allow the children in to the room. The downstairs apartment was larger than the one above, which was not difficult considering it was quite honestly smaller than any room Daniel had ever been in to, but the downstairs room was still anything but spacious, especially with two women and six children occupying it. 

Yet they all seemed to rub along, as far as Daniel could tell. The children had all woken at some point during the night and had been granted soft words and kisses upon the forehead by mother, aunt, and uncle, and introduced to Daniel, and it had been impossible to keep his face stern and straight when presented with a series of sleepy faces and forget-me-not blue eyes.

He noted the way Jones sang to his nieces and nephews, knowing each child’s favourite tune and the rhythm required to lull them back to sleep, and the care taken in carrying them back to the large, shared beds, even with his injured ankle. He noted the terms of endearment shared between them all, especially between Jones and his two sisters, who seemed to refer to one another never by name but always as “dearest,” “love”, “darling” and every other sort of endearment. And when they both retired back to bed, having been reassured by Jones that he was not at all badly injured save for his ankle and the bruise around his eye, Daniel noted how fondly the man smiled in their direction, but also how he had lied. 

The hour was late, past two a.m. according to Daniel’s watch, but he couldn’t even think of sleeping, not when Jones was sat opposite him looking so beautiful in the low light of the dying fire. He put down his teacup and watched as Jones carefully picked up and ate the crumbs left on his plate from the slice of plain, dry bread that had been his supper. 

“You lied to them,” he pointed out quietly, trying to keep his voice free of judgement for he truly felt no malice or anger toward the man, only a desire to understand why he would hold something back when he seemed so close to his siblings. “Why would you tell them you were unhurt when I’ve seen your bruises?”

Jones sucked in his bottom lip at the question, nodding ever so slightly, though to himself rather than Daniel, but when he glanced up it wasn’t to answer the man’s question, at least not at first.

“Yes. Can you help me with my shirt, sir? I don’t think I could get it off myself and I do need to check on the damage. There’s something of a pain in my chest that suggests something more than mere bruises.”

Daniel felt the heat rise in his cheeks, and through his chest, along with a tingling through his fingers, even before his hands touched Jones’ skin or began to remove the ripped garment. Every action when he was in Jones’ company seemed far too intimate, like a declaration of feelings that Daniel neither understood nor wished to understand, and the only thing keeping him in check was the pain that Jones wore so clearly on his face. And when he was finally free of the offending garment, after several minutes of careful, quiet, maneuverings, Daniel could see why.

The bruises on Jones’ legs from his assailants’ boots had been bad enough but without the large shirt to hide his body Daniel could see the extent of the damage to his torso as well, and it filled him with anger. Jones’ ribs were a mess of purple and black and Daniel wondered how he had managed to carry his nieces and little nephew when he was so obviously in pain, but he didn’t ask. 

“You should see a doctor?” he whispered, “your ribs could well be broken.”  
“I know they are,” Jones answered him. “I don’t need a doctor to tell me that. An’ I don’t have the money to waste on one neither. I’ve broken ribs before, I know what it feels like.”

Daniel blanched at such a harsh tone. It was too familiar, too similar to the way he himself spoke, and completely at odds with the cheerful man he imagined Jones to be. It made him feel rather out of sorts, but he attempted to recover himself somewhat, when he saw how defensive the man opposite him had become. 

“No money for a doctor... because the men who... because those men stole it?” he chanced, but Jones only bit into his already swollen bottom lip as he poked down at a graze along his left side where the floor or a boot had broken the skin as well as bruising it bad enough to swell. “That is what was in the box, wasn’t it?” he pushed. “Your earnings? Because if you need it, I can pay for a doctor to-“

“No,” Jones said forcefully before lowering his voice back to a whisper. “I don’t take gifts, it ends badly, trust me. Rich men get possessive. Their pride makes them think they own me and I’m not having it, so I don’t take gifts, just what I’m owed for services rendered. And if I had money it still wouldn’t go to some quack. I’ve got to come up with some way to make that money up and then some before the rent’s due.”

“But I can help,” Daniel urged but Jones only shook his head and looked at him fiercely through his black hair. 

“Come back in a couple of days, when I can breathe a bit, and I’ll sort you out. But I don’t take gifts.”

Daniel wanted to jump to his feet, to yell, to storm away in anger, but Jones was looking at him beseechingly, glancing toward his sleeping family as if to beg Daniel not to wake them, and so he kept his tone calm and his volume low. 

“I did not come here tonight because I wanted... your body,” he stuttered, watching the beginnings of a smile edge their way on to Jones’ lips. “I came because I enjoyed your company and I found your note, and because I punched a man in the face at a party because he waggled his eyebrows when talking of my sister and I needed to be around someone who would not sigh or scold me or laugh at me for my stupidity.”

Jones seemed to take a rather long time to digest all of what Daniel had told him but eventually the smile spread across his lips properly and he looked up to meet Daniel’s gaze. 

“Ah, the things we do for our families,” he said wistfully, and Daniel watched as Jones set about wetting the sleeve of his shirt in the dregs of his tea, only to dab it over his grazes and bruises to clean them. “I hit a man for my sister’s honour once as well,” he chuckled, faltering when the action sent a bolt of pain through his chest and grimacing in such a way that Daniel reached out to put his hand to Jones’ shoulder to support him. It had been a simple gesture and yet, once his hand had slid over Jones’ naked shoulder, he began to feel that it was somehow far less innocent than he’d intended. 

“You hit a man?” he asked, disbelieving, both at such a claim and that Jones was allowing him to remain with his hand where it was. 

Jones laughed quietly again. “I was eighteen and he was refusing to marry my Katie even though she was carrying his baby. And she loved him fiercely. I hated to see her cry, still do. So I clocked him one across the chin. He thought it was highly amusing and dragged me home and proposed to Kate there and then. He wasn’t a bad sort in the end.”

“And where is he now?” Daniel asked carefully, aware that he was tiptoeing in to territory that he might not be welcome in. 

“He and Beth’s man were both arrested over that arson incident at the dockyard. They didn’t mean for the fire to spread, I’m sure of it, but there was no chance the magistrate was going to let them walk, not with the smuggling charges laid on top.”

“So they’re in prison?” Daniel asked, unable to shake the sense that there was something much darker yet to be revealed.

“More like under it,” Jones answered, confirming the worse. “Shame really, they were good men. And now look how many mouths there’s to feed without them.”

“They were criminals.”

The words had come from nowhere, some crotchety corner of Dan’s brain, and he winced when they left his mouth, and again at the look Jones gave him in response. 

“Yeah, they were, sir,” he nodded, his voice still carefully soft. “But they ain’t the only ones. I’m a criminal, sir. I could swing if I’m ever caught.”

“Oh,” Daniel whispered after a moment, “yes of course. I didn’t mean...”

Silence spread between them and Daniel found it difficult to tear his eyes away from the sight of Jones as he ran his fingers over his ribs, pinpointing the breaks with a grimace. At the sight of such renewed pain Daniel ducked his head, looking down at his hands and the grazes that marred his knuckles instead, wondering what trouble he would find waiting for him when morning came. Eventually the urge to speak crept upon him, an uncommon sensation, but when he looked up, mouth open, he found Jones staring back in exactly the same attitude.

“Apologies,” Jones blushed drawing his shoulders in tight despite the pain it surely caused him. 

“No, no,” Daniel assured him quickly. “I was only going to ask... how will you make up the money that was taken if you won’t take it from me and you can’t work? It seems an impossible position.”

Jones sighed, glancing across to his sleeping family, his own eyes glassy and tired. 

“Kate works at a laundry, Beth takes in mending, we may just scrape through,” he reasoned, though he didn’t meet Daniel’s eye. “And aside from the rib and the ankle these injuries aren’t so bad. I should only need a day.”

To Daniel it still seemed untenable but he could think of no way out. 

“And what of tonight? What of now? You need to sleep. Where do you usually sleep?” Jones’ eyes flickered to the floor by the dying fire but he didn’t give an answer, none was needed. Dan sighed but felt suddenly determined, just as he had the day he finally decided to submit his writing for the first time, to see what change he could bring about in his subpar life. “I did not come here tonight for... intercourse. I came for your company. And you have given it, and I am willing and able to pay for it. And if you will deign to share your blanket and your floor with me for the rest of the night I would be willing to pay for that privilege as well. Not a gift, only payment for services rendered. We shall call it research. I am a writer after all and should know as much about the lives of the people I write of as possible, don’t you think?”

Jones let out a faint huff and when Daniel looked up there was a small smirk on his pretty lips which inevitably drew forth an answering smile to Daniel’s. Jones nodded after a moment, and Daniel felt his heart flutter madly in his chest, a feeling he had never thought to experience so regularly, and certainly not at the prospect of a night on a hard floor. 

He assisted Jones in dressing, though he hated that there seemed nothing else for him to wear but the same, bloodied shirt, and hated himself for the thrills of pleasure that he felt as he guided the man to the fireside and lay down beside him, their bodies pressed close together beneath the pitiful blanket. He thought vaguely of how cross Claire would be with him for not coming home, for his failure to hire a valet for a second day in a row; and what consequences would await him in Jonatton Yeahman’s office, but such concerns were distant when he had the weight and warmth of another human being against his chest. And his sleep, aided by the rhythm of Jones’ breathing, and the beat of his heart, was dreamless and deep and more refreshing than he had experienced for many long years.


	8. Chapter 8

The new day had dawned rather too quickly for Daniel, and wakefulness did not come upon him with any sort of gentleness but with the sound of a baby crying and the giggling of a small child who, when he opened an eye suspiciously, filled his vision and appeared to be sitting on his stomach. The little creature squealed upon realising that Daniel was awake and scrambled away, only to succeed in kicking her uncle as she went.

Jones let out a pained groan as his niece tumbled over him and Daniel quickly moved himself back to give the man space to stretch his injured body, though he nearly toppled in to the newly lit fire in the process. He flushed with anger at the titter of laughter behind him and looked up sharply, though regretted so immediately.

The laughter had come from Beth, Jones’ sister who was sat at the table with her youngest on her knee, nursing him as he fiddled with the frayed ribbons of her dress. With the grey morning light behind them they looked strangely radiant and put Daniel in mind of a painting of the Madonna and Child, if any artist would ever dare paint the holy family in poverty instead of splendour. Beth looked rather bashful as she covered her mouth and so Daniel tried to school his face to something less scolding; he was lying upon her floor after all. 

“I didn’t mean to laugh, sir,” she said softly, blinking, her blue eyes more heavy-lidded than her brother’s. “Only it’s not every day I see a gentleman in such a state.”

“You should see me roll out of bed any other day of the week,” Daniel said with a groan, sitting up carefully and stretching his aching spine. “It’s much the same. I’ve not even a valet these days, to remind me to comb my hair. My sister is quite at her wit’s end and she does more than laugh, I assure you.”

Beth gave another small laugh, which the child at her breast echoed, gazing up at her adoringly, and Daniel looked away hurriedly, unprepared for such a strong display of love and feeling somehow that he was stealing a glance at something far too private, and turned to the room at large instead. There were only the four youngest to be seen, no sign of Jonnie or Jones’ other sister, Kate, or the other niece, whose name escaped him. He had been introduced to too many little people the night before and could remember only one or two. Jones himself still had his eyes tightly shut, as if to deny the encroaching day, and so Daniel looked back questioningly at Beth, who smiled at him as if understanding his curiosity.

“My sister is already at work, sir,” she explained. “And the older two are at school. Normally my brother would take them but well…”

“You didn’t let them go on their own, did you?” Jones exclaimed, speaking so unexpectedly that Daniel jumped fair out of his skin. Jones sat up with a groan but Beth only gave him a sympathetic smile. 

“It wasn’t my decision to make dear heart, but it was decided that if you could sleep through the morning chaos then you probably needed to stay that way. You don’t sleep enough. No man can live on nothing but coffee and dry bread. You’ll fade away. Tell him, sir,” she said, shifting her attention from her brother to Daniel, and he blanched at being so addressed, but Jones scolded her fondly and turned to give Daniel a rather shy smile.

“Don’t bring the poor man in to it, love. And besides, I’m fine. I ate a potato last week and all.” 

Beth gave a sigh, though it was a thoroughly good natured one, and set the small child she had been nursing down on to the floor as she stretched her back and then took up her mending.

“If my sister suspected me of eating a diet like that she’d hit me about the head with one of her blasted novels,” Daniel found himself saying aloud and felt rather proud when both Jones and his sister laughed softly. 

“Well then,” Beth chuckled, “it’s lucky for my brother that I cannot read, I suppose. I’ve no books to beat him with. Not that I would,” she amended. “He doesn’t need my help in that area. He is perfectly capable of getting himself beaten without my interference.”

Daniel turned back to Jones, who was now sitting up beside him and had scooped one of his young nieces, Dot, in to his lap, and was proceeding to tickle her until her giggling had blocked out all other noise. 

“I am fine,” he said without looking up at either of them, focused on pulling peals of laughter from the tiny child in his arms. “And in a few hours, after a little rest, I shall be more than fine. And tomorrow I shall be right as rain!”

“Right as rain!” the little girl repeated loudly, and then proceeded to sneeze directly in her uncle’s face. 

Daniel felt vaguely disgusted, and watched as Jones sat, his eyes tight shut and lips pursed, wondering how he would react to such a thing, and he was not disappointed.

“Thank you ever so for sharing, sweetheart,” he said wryly, blinking rapidly at the still giggling child. “Pop along now, there’s a good girl.”

“That child’s always sneezing,” Beth told Daniel as he turned away from the sight of Jones wiping his face on his equally grubby, blood stained, sleeve, “catches everything going, which is a lot around this place. You stay much longer you’ll catch something too, sir.”

Daniel blinked at that, for though the words were lightly said they recalled to him that he should probably be heading home to face the consequences of his actions on the previous evening. He turned back to Jones, taking in the brilliant paleness of his skin, so in contrast with the dark bruise around his eye; and the delicate curves of his face, his high cheekbones, full lower lip, arched brow, it all caused Daniel’s heart to flutter in a most terrifying way. He knew he should say something, goodbye or thank you, some civil, trivial thing, but his mind refused to give him anything, and he carried on looking, chest tight and butterflies overflowing from his stomach until Jones gazed up at him with a smile that was at once naughtily mischievous and achingly innocent.

“I’ll likely catch my death now,” he said jokingly, though his laughter was cut short by a gasp of pain and he clutched his side with a grimace, and met Daniel’s eye, begging him to refrain from mentioning it. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to guide you out of our warren and back the straight and righteous path today, sir, if it’s all the same. And while I’d be happy enough to have you stay with us here at the Jones house for the rest of time, I expect you’ve got things on.” He gave Daniel an odd look at that, an appraising look, Daniel would say, angling his chin to look up through his long hair, and Daniel felt, once again, lost for words. 

“I’ve not much on,” he said with a shrug, “save that my sister is probably livid with me for not returning home last night, and for not hiring either a valet or a butler when I was supposed to; and my editor likely wants to fire me for punching one of his detestable guests; and said guest is probably owed an apology, even if he is a most loathsome creature. And then,” he said with a dramatic sigh when he realised that he was being watched intensely by four very small, blue-eyed children, “I shall need to go forth and actually hire a man.”

Jones let out a snort of laughter at that, which caused his nieces and nephew to giggle, and Daniel found himself quite loathe to leave.

“I’ll walk with you, sir,” Beth chimed in, “for as long as you need a guide. As long as you’re alright to watch the children, dearest?”

“Always,” Jones answered with a broad grin. “But mind what I said, sir?” he said, turning back to Daniel. “A day or two and I’ll be right as rain if you’d... well, if you’d fancy...”

Daniel was sure he’d never blushed so deeply in his life and scrambled to his feet feeling quite unstable in body, mind, and heart.


	9. Chapter 9

Claire was waiting for him when he arrived home, so furious she looked like a cat just escaped from a sack. She was prowling the front hall, staring at the street door and swishing her ridiculous skirts and Daniel, from his position in the narrow corridor from the kitchen, felt ludicrously pleased to have avoided her trap. It was obvious that she intended to pounce upon him the very moment he walked in, to put him down until he was shame faced and apologetic. She had that look about her, thin lipped and grim, but Daniel had no intention of playing along, he was in good spirits and needed to preserve the feeling for as long as he could. 

He had walked with the greatest care from the kitchen and his sister had not heard his approach, which made him feel childishly gleeful, and which also gave him a moment to mull over his options and how he should proceed. He looked a state, he was sure, and wished, for the first time, that he did have a valet to tidy him up, and possibly cause a distraction to get him past his sister. 

As he’d left Jones’ apartment that morning Beth had pointed out that her brother had once been in service, if Daniel really did need a man. 

“Aye, when I was six years old!” Jones had countered looking up from where he’d been entertaining his young nieces and nephew by playing the spoons. “And fired at eleven,” he continued with a flourish. “Which, dear heart, was sixteen years ago. He doesn’t want me. I’d only embarrass him, and while his blush is very pretty,” he said with a wink in Daniel’s direction, which promptly produced the aforementioned blush. “I’ve no wish to do that to him all the long day. Besides, if I’m out of the game too long I’ll lose all my custom. It’s bad enough having to take today off.”

Daniel had kept his silence, frowning at the ankle that Jones, who was sat on a chair at the table by that time, had propped up and was similarly glaring at. It wasn’t broken, so Jones claimed, only bruised, but was tender enough to make Jones’ usual routine of standing in the street and walking up and down the steep steps to his apartment untenable. He hadn’t wanted to take Daniel’s money, but Daniel had been insistent. He had come seeking company, and Jones had provided him with conversation, tea, coffee, and a place to sleep for the night, and as Beth had walked him through the city later that morning, he had subtly enquired as to the cost of their rent, and their weekly food.

“Ten shillings is usually what we’ve got to spare for food,” she told him honestly. “But I don’t know how we’ll manage it this week. Our dear Jonnie informed me of the fact that we’re running a bit short, so to speak.”

Daniel stopped, drawing Beth away from the bustle of the street as his mind formulated the plan he needed. 

“I am not a good person, Miss Jones. I am not generous or kind hearted, as a rule.” Beth made to argue but Daniel shook his head and continued, taking his fingers through his hair as it fell across his eyes. “Ask any lady in the city, I am the worst sort of gentleman - unsocial, dour, and downright rude from time to time. Unfit company in essence, and not given to charity either. However, I am in need of staff, and am unaccustomed to seeing children go hungry. I have only my allowance at present, and what money I get for my,” he hesitated. There were few who knew that Daniel Ashcroft was a writer, but Beth Jones could not read, and he trusted her, even after so short an acquaintance. “I have only my allowance and what money I get for my writing, which I had used to think insufficient. Now I see I was mistaken. I have ten shillings,” he continued, racing through the words and over Beth’s small cry. “No, you must take them. Not for Jones, but for the children. But do tell him,” he faltered once more, not sure how to put in to words what he wished the young man to know, or what he wished to express to him via a third party. “Tell him that, should he change his mind, about the job... I shall stop by in a few days, to see if his ankle is any better, and to show young Jonnie the proper stance for boxing, and, and-“ Daniel sucked in his breath, willing his tongue to simply stop in its wagging, sure that he was making the most terrible fool of himself. He shook his hair down in front of his face, scowled at the filthy street, but no harsh word or mocking laugh came.

“I love my brother very much, sir,” Beth Jones told him. “And he has seen more than his fair share of trouble. He could use a friend just now and I can see that you wish to be that, but he has his pride, as I say, so do tread lightly, sir, if you mean to be more than just one of his poke and runs.”

“I’m not- I didn’t!” Daniel stuttered, but the young woman only patted his arm and smiled in an understanding manner.

“It’s alright, sir. I don’t judge in these things. My own gentleman, Thomas’s late father as was, he was the same way, ‘bout half the time,” she shrugged, as if she said something perfectly ordinary. “Just take a care with his heart, sir, that’s all. He’s my brother, I do not like to see him heart sore.”

Standing in the servants hall, watching Claire storm about, glaring at the door, intent on making him as sore as she could manage, Daniel wondered how Jones had managed to secure such caring sisters while his own didn’t seem to care for him a jot. He took several careful steps backwards and then gave a few stamping footsteps before coming back along the hall with enough noise to let Claire know that he was coming. 

“Where have you been?” she cried striding forward to stop just short of the narrow doorway, effectively blocking Daniel from the main stairs and the quickest route to his room, scowling intently. “You didn’t come home last night and I’ve had to answer our door to all and sundry!”

Daniel had thought to insult her dress, a sure way to make her turn away in a huff and give him space to pass, but instead he took a moment to process what she’s actually said. 

“Who’s been calling at the house?” he asked her, brows drawn low and shoulders hunched, and the look she gave him said very clearly that she knew at least some of what he’d been up to the previous night.

“Our aunt, for a start,” she told him, seeming to loom despite being half a foot shorter. “She was appalled, Daniel! She said if you will not hire someone or have been squandering your income and cannot afford to, then I shall have to live with her instead! She kept going on and on about how she only expected us to stay in London for a season or two, not five; but I can’t go and live with her, Daniel! I can’t! You shall have to hire new staff, from wherever you can, and hang the expense, or she shall make my life a misery and marry me off to some brainless ninny!”

Dan refrained from pointing out that it had been Claire who dismissed half of their staff, and that Dan had only been the unfortunate inheritor of her folly. He wouldn’t have been able to say such things even if he might have like to, of course, because Claire gave him no opportunity, continuing on at length about the horrors of marriage and being tied to a man she couldn’t stand and couldn’t be on equal footing with. Daniel watched her cheeks colour, changing from small blotches of irritated pink to a deep red as she carried on. Claire, unlike her taciturn brother, occasionally spoke at such great length and with such passion that she made herself light-headed and Daniel had learnt to watch for the warning signs.

“And was that all?” he asked at length when she had stormed and raged about the various idiotic men their aunt wished to marry her to. He had just about squeezed out of the narrow doorway and in to the main entrance hall and could practically see the stairs, but Claire rounded on him and he stumbled backwards once again, not willing or able to actually go against her will.

“No it is not,” she said sharply. “After our aunt left came a rather exotic lady who called to see whether you were alright, or, should I say, to see if Mr. Pettifer was alright. I don’t know how she discovered your address but she did, Daniel, and she told me exactly what you did at that party last night! You can’t go around punching publishers, Daniel! I shall never get a single one of my manuscripts printed if you do that!” She huffed and turned away again, her large skirts seeming to move out of time with the rest of her body, and Daniel took the opportunity to dart out of the corridor and toward the stairs. “She was quite lovely really,” Claire said with her back still turned, “very clever, very nice to talk to. But she couldn’t stay long.”

“Oh well-“ Daniel tried to sound consoling or sorry or whatever his sister wanted to hear as he slipped past, but she wasn’t done with him, and the look she gave him when she turned around was fierce indeed.

“You had one other visitor in fact. And he’s still here. Your editor. I can’t say I like him, Daniel. He thought I was the housekeeper, and he made several remarks which I did not understand in the slightest but which I am sure were highly unsavoury, and he will not leave, he says, until he’s spoken with you.”

Daniel sighed. He had hoped to wash and dress and make himself presentable before going in search of Mr Yeahman and making his apologies but he deserved, he supposed, the humiliation of being seen in such a state. He had ruined Yeahman’s party and had stayed up for most of the night then slept what was left of it on a floor. He was sure he looked an absolute fright.

“Right,” Daniel said, trying to gather his courage, a task made more difficult when Claire looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Time to face the music, I suppose.”

He strode forward, straightening his jacket and his shoulders, reminding himself of his position and value as the most popular write that Yeahman had in his employ. This attempt at confidence was short lived, however, when he heard his sister’s muttering behind him.

“Funny, I thought you hated music.”


	10. Chapter 10

Jonatton Yeahman was the sort of chinless man that Daniel detested on principle, and if he had actually had cause to meet the man upon the submission of his application to the journal, he might have thought twice about accepting the position offered to him. In reality he had been so innocently happy and proud to have his writing accepted that he had happily gone along with the contract sent to him, and hadn’t actually met the man, or realised the consequences of his hastily written signature until he was two months in to the job and thoroughly addicted to writing and completely at the mercy of Yeahman’s whim. 

He approached the sitting room with caution, feeling rather deflated and unsure of himself, and found, upon reaching the doorway, that his hand had crept in to his waistcoat pocket, the engraved silver of his watch providing a comfort it never used to afford. He had made an ass of himself at Yeahman’s party and he needed to make amends and apologise, as much as he loathed such a fact. Mr. Jones would not cringe away from his problems, surely he thought to himself. Jones did not shy away from his pride, when it served him, and Daniel had been informed by both the man and his sister that he took pride in learning from his mistakes as well. He would not let himself be cowed, surely. In fact, Daniel reasoned to himself, Jones would likely find someway to smile at the situation and shrug it off, and it was with that thought in his mind that he entered the sitting room, though it was a more difficult thing to carry off in reality than it was to imagine within the safety of his own mind. 

“Ah, Mr. Pettifer,” Yeahman said with the deepest sarcasm, lounging improperly on a love seat by the unlit fireplace. “So good of you to join us.” He followed Daniel’s eye to the empty grate and tutted loudly, his eyes flashing with enough fire to make up for the drafty room. “You really should have a word with your staff, Pettifer, this is quite unheard of, you know. Unless you are attempting to imitate the lives of those wretched, virtuous poor that your last essay was brimming with? It was quite the Marxist manifesto and no mistaking.”

“Yes, well...” Daniel mumbled. This felt very much like being reprimanded by his school masters for failing to live up to expectations, only Yeahman could achieve the desired humiliation without raising his voice or moving a muscle.

“I don’t even know if I could print the thing with causing an absolute ruckus,” Yeahman snorted, looking down at his perfectly manicured fingernails.

“Oh,” Daniel uttered, feeling himself deflate all the more. He had given his money to Beth in the hope that he would continue to be paid for his words and panic began to creep up his throat at the thought of admitting to his sister, or worse, his aunt or father, that he had no money.

“I will of course!” Yeahman said with a sudden smirk, fixing his gaze on Daniel almost violently. “Nothing like a bit of drama to keep the interest high. It’s like a brawl at a dinner party, isn’t it, Mr. Pettifer?”

“Yes, well... I am... sorry about that, Mr. Yeahman,” Daniel muttered. “I don’t know what came over me.”  
“I do. I’d say it was a combination of my very fine wine, the presence of Barley, and the desire to impress a beautiful woman.” His editor laughed obnoxiously, and Daniel clenched his jaw lest he say something to make his situation worse. “But I’m afraid it was in vain. She’s a far superior lady than Mr. Pettifer could hope to capture. Or Mr. Ashcroft for that matter. Though she told me it was jolly entertaining. Even asked for your address, so maybe you are in with a shot. Maybe she likes brutes who use their fists instead of their words.”

“I am sorry,” Daniel repeated, feeling his hands curl in to fists despite his best efforts. “It won’t happen again.”

“Ah, come now, don’t say that,” Yeahman laughed, rising up from his seat and sauntering forward. “Barley is keen to be further acquainted with you and your antics once again made my party quite the talk of the town! I am here to request more of the same, if you will, Mr. Pettifer, especially if you wish to continue writing for me!” His smile, when he gave it, was all sharp edges, and gave Daniel something of a shiver in his spine. The man walked directly in to his space, so close there was naught even breathing room between them, and hummed as if waiting for a reply of some sort. Daniel could only nod dumbly in agreement. “And do keep writing, Daniel,” Yeahman continued, leaning in close to his neck and speaking barely above a whisper, far too intimate for comfort. “I would have your writing printed twice in every addition of ‘Primate’ from now on; one piece of your own devising, one on a topic of my choosing. You seem to vomit out words on to the paper with surprising ease for one so close to mute, so it can be no hardship on you. And you can use the extra income to hire your poor sister a few servants. That should take the bee out of her bonnet, don’t you think? I’ll expect to see her at your side at my next gathering as well. Barley is keen to meet her and you will indulge him, won’t you Daniel.”

Daniel nodded once more, trying to turn his eyes to anything other than the man standing so close to him, but couldn’t quite succeed, and by the look in the man’s eye when he met it, he knew that he was trapped. He wondered what Jones would say of such a meeting, and the mess he had dug himself further in to.


	11. Chapter 11

“And what?” Jones asked with a disbelieving quirk of his eyebrow. “He actually wants you to get drunk and cause a fuss at his parties? That’s ridiculous!”

Jones looked scandalised, even as his accustomed grin began to creep back in to place upon his cheeks, and Daniel fought against his own threatening smile. It was really no laughing matter and he could not allow himself to fall victim to Jones’ natural charm and the feelings it inspired within him (not again at any rate, he had found himself staring at the man’s lips far too many times already).

“Of course it is,” he grunted, glancing up at Jones’ shocked face before he went back to staring at his writing. “Anyone who acquires enough wealth automatically descends in to the realm of the ridiculous. Every man on money in the country is a fool and an embarrassment to what it once was to be British.” 

Another dart of his eyes told him that Jones looked quite ready to laugh at such a sentiment, melodramatic as it was, and so Daniel fixed his eyes firmly downward, though he was not wholly impressed by what he saw there. He had smudged several of his words with the cuff of his shirt at some point whilst the ink was still wet and his whole sleeve looked as if it had been dragged along the soot coated chimney in the corner of the room. His clothes were beginning to show signs of his neglect and even Jones, who only seemed to own one shirt looked neater than he did. 

He had spent the day attempting (albeit very half-heartedly) to acquire some sort of staff for the house but still hadn’t been able to bring himself to hire a man. He’d ended up with a housekeeper instead, a woman who he had been assured was highly capable and would present herself to him the very next day. The agency had tried to force a butler and half a dozen maids on him, for apparently the factory had filled its ranks and there were now girls aplenty, until the next factory opened at least, but Daniel had declined. He could get along well enough without a valet, he had decided stubbornly, and the new housekeeper could take over the hiring of any additional staff she needed.

He was relieved that it was done, but had been once more disturbed by the experience and had decided, since he was now engaged to write double the words in order to remain employed, that a diatribe on the way servants were talked of and bartered for like chattel would be very fitting. Jonathan had tried to mock him by likening him to Marx but he could barely restrain the smile that slipped past his guard when he thought on such a comparison, and if he was to write for his food then he would write about the evils that surrounded him and damn the consequences – if he could actually get the words down on paper of course. He had at first thought to write at the desk in his study. It was where he had composed all previous essays and opinions, but instead he found himself pacing in front of the empty pages, glaring at the ornate desk and comfortable room and the tall, expensive candles. It wouldn’t do, wasn’t right, to be writing about the plight of the servant from the comfort of such a home, and so he gathered up paper, pens, ink, and several candles, and hurried toward the kitchen. Mrs. Wimple was still there, and while she seemed rather stunned to see him she didn’t hesitate in providing him with a carry basket and cheese, bacon, and several hard-boiled eggs. And then, with back straighter than was usual and chin stubbornly set, Daniel had marched himself down through the twilit city to the Jones residence, hoping desperately that his basket of food would be accepted as a fair exchange for a place at their table.

He had anticipated being told to go away if he was at all honest; he was all too aware that he was dreadful company, but had not foreseen any scenario in which he was warmly welcomed before he had even revealed his basket of vitals. Yet that was exactly what happened, and no sooner had he explained his predicament, that he could not write a word in the silence of his house, than he found himself sat at the table with the same small child from that morning climbing up on to his lap, who began busily examining Daniel’s buttons, and Jonnie talking to him a mile a minute, asking what he had in his basket, where he’d found such thick paper, and what it was like to write with real ink.

Daniel was vaguely aware that such things should be considered irritating, indeed had heard other men talk many times about how irksome their children were, especially when allowed to speak unchecked, and yet Daniel found himself lulled by the sweet noise - the giggling play of the other children, the tuneless hum of the infant in his lap, the quiet conversation of Beth and her sister, Kate, and Mr. Jones, who seemed to be able to pull a conversation from Daniel’s mind and mouth without his being readily aware of it, and whose fingers were tapping on the worn table as if on piano keys. 

“Hey, penny for your thoughts, Mr. Ashcroft?” Jones suddenly called to him from across the table, and Daniel looked up, aware he’d been lost in thought for some time but unsure how to answer. 

“Jonnie’s very bright,” he muttered, grunting slightly as the child in his lap curled up more securely against him and closed her eyes. “I mean, they all are but, he writes very well for a boy his age is all.”

“Yes well, that’d be on account of him nicking paper whenever he comes across it, and anything he might be able to write with. He’s got a proper brain in his head though.” 

Daniel looked up at the smile on Jones’ face, the evident pride, and hoped that the boy would have the opportunity to use that intelligence to achieve what his uncle had been denied, for the longer he spoke with Jones the more he saw of the man’s wit and clever mind, and seemingly boundless talent. Daniel wanted to tell him so, but feared to be so forward, and so let the thought drop and allowed the homely noise to wash over him once more as he wrote, the scratch of his pen adding to the general murmur of the household, until he sat back with a sigh and read back over the finished piece. 

Kate was busy bustling the children towards bed and Jones aided her, limping though he was, kissing foreheads and singing songs and staving off excuses as to why that particular time was not in fact bedtime. He smiled as he went about it, like it was no chore at all, until he was caught unawares by a fit of sneezing, and cried out at the sudden pain in his side, though Daniel could see that he tried to hide how greatly he was affected so as not to wake the children. Beth and Kate were immediately upon him, guiding him back to his chair and fussing, despite his protests that he was fine (his words and tone almost identical to those of his nieces and nephews) and he looked sheepishly at Daniel when he eventually pressed back in to his seat and told to stay put. 

Daniel tried not to be jealous but felt the hot, bitter feeling racing through his veins all the same, and so took up where Jones had left off, carrying the infant who had fallen asleep in his arms to bed, noting how angelic she looked, yet how small and frail too, undernourished in the callous city she was forced to call home. He even tried humming as he lay her down and watched her snuggle up against her older sister, and when he returned to the table, watching as Kate extinguished the candles he had brought until only the small cooking fire remained, and he was bid goodnight by his hosts until only Jones remained, staring in to the stuttering flames and humming the very same tune that Daniel had so artlessly attempted.

The man’s fingers were back to tapping on the table edge, though quieter, and Daniel wondered at the nervous energy pulsing forth from his person. He was unaccustomed, Daniel supposed, to being stuck within doors and idle, and even though he knew the hour was late, he hesitated in packing his writing away and turning his sights toward home. It had never felt so much like home as this small apartment did, and he was loathe to leave its comfort, or to leave Jones either.

“Do you always feel to the need to be tapping out some rhythm?” he asked gently, but Jones looked up as if caught in the midst of some crime, and immediately hunched his shoulders and hid his hands. 

“Not always,” he offered. “Only almost all of the time.”

Daniel smiled. “I like it. I was always told off for fidgeting as a boy. I used to tap my pencil against my slate and drove my tutor to distraction. He set about teaching me all sorts of instruments, simply to keep my hands busy.”

Jones’ returning smile was brighter than the fire in the grate upon hearing such a confession and he leaned forward to look up at Daniel through his dark hair with the most delightful and genuine excitement writ on his pale face. 

“Did you learn the piano? I learned the piano! When I were a nipper. There was one at the house where my mum and me worked. In the housekeeper’s room. They let me play it once I showed I could learn how. Oh, I loved that piano! I’ve not played in years! Do you still play?”

Daniel shook his head. “Not in years. But I have one in the house. You could play it any time you wished. If it would please you.”

Jones scoffed and sat back in his chair, though the action caused him to wince, and he proceeded to cough weakly, trying to stifle the action without success. 

“Ah now, Mr. Ashcroft, sir,” he said eventually, eyes streaming and his throat raw from repressed coughs. “That wouldn’t work, see. Your sister isn’t going to want some grubby fingered stranger waltzing in to bang about on the ivories. I expect your new housekeeper’ll want it even less.”

“You don’t need to call me Mr. Ashcroft or ‘sir’,” Daniel replied with a huff. “Least of all in your own home. And I couldn’t give a damn about what my sister thinks.”

“You don’t mean that,” Jones countered with a gentle shake of his head. “And what am I to call you if not Mr. Ashcroft? D’you posh types even have given names? I thought you were all Christened with a title and your father’s name, then fed with a silver spoon of plenty to keep you quiet and happy.” 

He smiled as he put the question to Daniel, and then pulled his chair closer, so that they were close enough that their hands, Daniel’s right and Jones’ left, were very nearly touching, then swung his injured ankle up and in to Daniel’s lap.

“It’s Daniel,” he said, chuckling, stretching his fingers and allowing them, as if by purest coincidence, to brush against Jones’. “And now you must tell me yours. Fair’s fair. What does the M. stand for?”

Jones looked at him, his head tilted as if to see Daniel from a different angle, his large blue eyes narrowed and lips pursed, and Daniel wondered what he was considering, and why there was such a shadow of doubt and caution in his usually blithe expression.

“Fair’s fair is it? Very well then, Daniel. The M stands for Molly,” he said rather bluntly. “At least it has done for the last fifteen years or so. I don’t expect you’ll want to call me by it, though so Jones will do us both just fine.”

Dan frowned but could detect no malice in the man’s tone. There was bitterness certainly, but no suggestion that he spoke with an aim to embarrass or mislead.

“That can’t be what you were Christened though, surely,” he asked when Jones offered no further explanation, and for a long, drawn out moment he feared the man would pull away from him or ask him to leave. Instead his fingers crept toward Daniel’s, his touch tentative, seeking, fearful. In response Daniel opened his palm and watched as Jones’ hand slid across it, until their palms were pressed together, and a delightful shudder ran down his spine to settle in his belly.

“At the big house they only called me boy, or Jones,” came the eventual, somber, reply. “My parents and sisters always called me dearest... and when I was taken in by the knocking shop they just called me Little Molly. And even when I left, set up on me own I still…” he sighed wearily and shook his head, seeming to think better of continuing with such a line of words. “It’s what I am. So if it’s all the same, Daniel, I’d just as soon be called Jones if you don’t mind. I like the way you say it. Like it’s something special, something just belonging to me. I don’t have much that’s just mine, you know? It’s a novel thing.”

Daniel could hardly argue against such words, given with such true and sincere feeling, not when Jones was holding his hand, gazing up at him with his hair obscuring the bruised side of his face, showing Daniel only one startling blue eye and the curve of his pale cheek. He nodded, opening his mouth to speak, but unable to do so when Jones’ eyes darted down to focus on his parted lips. He felt his heart skip unsteadily within his chest, and felt Jones’ pulse do likewise where his fingers rested over the man’s wrist. His body quivered and his own eyes were drawn to Jones’ full bottom lip and the way his teeth were tugging it, looking at Daniel in the same way he had looked at the food in Daniel’s basket - almost longingly - before he had begun sharing it out among his nieces, nephews, and sisters, leaving nothing for himself. 

“Jones,” he heard himself say, the name slipping from his lips with more grace than any word he had ever uttered. “It shall be my pleasure to oblige. But now I fear I must return to my empty, silent house. May I come back and visit you all again soon?”

Jones smiled, a grin that Daniel could not help but return. “You can call this place home as often as you need. The door to the house of Jones is always open to family. But surely not yet? You haven’t read to me what you’ve written yet and I’m dead curious. Please?”

Daniel felt strangely giddy, both at hearing such words and at the way Jones’ fingers tightened around his wrist, caressing so gently yet igniting his senses. There was a fluttering in his chest and he allowed his own fingers to circle Jones’ delicate wrist intimately as he spoke. 

“I can perhaps stay a little longer. If my company does not bother you.”

Jones smiled, full lips rosy and inviting, firelight dancing in his eyes. “Oh, Daniel Ashcroft, company does not bother me at all. I would have you stay forever if I could.”


	12. Chapter 12

Daniel sat at the kitchen table, his empty breakfast plate before him, and surveyed his new housekeeper. She seemed a good sort but then again, he was ridiculously tired and would swear the woman was the very image of Jones, if the man had ever worn a dress and slicked his hair back in to a sensible bun. 

He had told Jones several times the night before that he needed to leave in order to get some sleep before meeting the woman, but he hadn’t actually listened to his own advice. Instead he and Jones had talked the night away, or rather whispered, and no matter how tired he felt he could not regret such a course of action. Jones had told him all manner of stories about clients present and past, of scrapes barely avoided and some not avoided at all. He’d told the tales with such humour and such skill in the telling that Daniel had found himself in absolute stitches, straining to keep his laughter to himself, so as not to wake Jones’ family, and even when the stories turned to the racy tales of odd requests from men both high and low, Daniel found himself unable to turn away, or to hide his enjoyment. In return he told Jones of the tedious fools he was forced to endure, both as a gentleman attending on his sister and aunt, and as a writer attending on Jonatton Yeahman because he found he could no longer rightly live without writing and some way of sharing it with the world. 

He had felt the most overwhelming pride at seeing Jones’ eyes widen as he spoke of the unfortunate incident with a tin of treacle only a few weeks past (when Daniel had fallen asleep against said treacle in the kitchen during a rather raucous party at the Yeahman residence) which had led Daniel to unwittingly introduce a new fashion to London’s artistic set. His hair had been impossible to tame for well over a week and he’d had to endure men such as Barley imitating him with hair wax - as if he had intended to make his menacingly curled hair even more unmanageable when the style of the day was to flatten one’s hair to ones skull as if with a grease brush. Jones had snorted hard at that, ruffling his own rather wayward hair, wincing when the laughter eventually devolved in to coughing that he attempted to stifle. Daniel winced along with him, hating the thought of what pain Jones must be in, suppressing his coughing when his ribs were broken and lungs bruised. Yet when the wheezing subsided he was back to drumming his fingers across the tabletop and talking in his usual flirtatious style, his injured ankle propped up on Daniel’s thigh, dangerously close to the bulge that had been persistently present for the majority of the evening. 

Daniel had struggled for most of the night with the urge to shift his legs just enough to let Jones’ foot slide downward toward his aching hardness. He wasn’t entirely sure what such an action would achieve, but the urge was there nevertheless, to make Jones aware of the effect he was having, and to push the issue out in to the open. He didn’t of course. The friendship he had found with the strange, delightful Molly was too important, he didn’t want to jeopardise it by asking to become one of his clients. He was quite certain that friendship didn’t quite work that way.

He had chosen instead to spend the night talking and laughing and making eyes at the man like a girl at her first public ball, desperate to fall in love, and had stumbled home just after dawn, his skin tingling where Jones had pressed a friendly parting kiss to his cheek as he wished him well.

He had arrived only shortly before the new housekeeper who had come to the kitchen door rather earlier than their scheduled meeting time with the intention of introducing herself to the other staff and learning about her new employers, but had been met the master of the house instead. As he’d watched Mrs. Wimple introduce him Daniel had wondered how the woman would react to such a thing, but all she did was blink half a dozen times, cock her head to the side as if to survey him from a different angle, and then carry on as normal. A true housekeeper, Daniel decided: unflappable, straight backed, slightly terrifying. 

“I hope you are not alarmed by my presence below stairs,” he told her, gesturing for her to sit with one hand and that she pour herself tea with the other. He worried that he appeared to be flapping his hands rather menacingly at her, especially because his own hands were so large and she so small, but she seemed to understand, and had soon joined him in taking tea. “It is not always my custom,” he continued, “but recently I have found it to be delightfully cosy, and Mrs. Wimple here is adept at both cooking and conversation, and in truth,” he paused for a moment, wondering how upfront he should be with a member of staff but wishing to know her measure, “in truth I have not yet been to bed.”

He saw her lips twitch but that was all and when she spoke her voice was much softer than any other housekeeper he’d ever encountered. “Very good, sir. I’m given to believe this is a small household and, if you’ll permit me to say, sir, this isn’t the first house I’ve worked for in which at least one family member took breakfast early in the kitchen by preference.”

“Very good,” Daniel echoed, trying not to smile too obviously. “I think you shall be just the person we need, Mrs...”

“Mrs. Smith, sir,” she supplied smoothly.

“Mrs. Smith,” he nodded, looking down at his tea. He liked the woman but that did not make it any easier to engage her in small talk. “And you are married Mrs. Smith. Is your husband also in service?”

“He was sir, before he passed, God rest his soul.”

“Oh,” Daniel felt his heart tighten, hating himself for such an ill judged question, but the housekeeper shook her head and continued on without any strong emotion. 

“It’s quite alright, sir, honest. It was some years ago, and he was a great many years older than me,” she reassured. “And my position now allows me to live in, so to speak, and therefore meet your needs as they arise.”

Daniel frowned, not at her words exactly, but at the tone. He looked up at her, at the dark hair parted down the centre and pulled back tightly from her small face. She had pale skin, a straight nose, and her chin was rather pointed. Her spectacles added to the impression of a very sensible, matronly sort of woman but she couldn’t have been much older than Daniel and he couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that she was vaguely familiar. He wondered if her eyes were blue or if that were only a trick of the light, or his own imagination that had him seeing Jones’ face wherever he looked.

“Have we met before, Mrs. Smith?”

She blinked again at that, and pushed at her spectacles, though they were perfectly in place.

“I don’t think so, sir, but I do look a good deal like my sister, I’m told.”

At which point Claire’s maid, Lucy, entered the kitchen and Daniel felt rather a fool. He had Jones on the brain it seemed for his first thought upon seeing her was to note that she too looked reminiscent of his new friend, and berated himself silently for such a thought, and for seeing Jones’ in every pale, blue-eyed face he saw.

“Sisters?” he said dumbly as the maid gave a curtsy and his new housekeeper nodded, their faces similar in both appearance and amusement. “Well that should make things easy for you then. Lucy can tell you everything you need to know about my sister better than I could, and about the house for that matter. For myself,” he said rather weakly, “I fear I must lie down for an hour or two.”

“Very good sir,” Mrs. Smith said with a nod, rising as Daniel did to give a small curtsy, which her sister copied behind her. “Shall I have your valet wake you when the midday meal is ready?”

“I-“ Daniel hesitated, his steps faltering as he turned for the steps back to the main hallway. “I have no valet at this time. I haven’t been able to find a man who... a man who I trust with the position.” He bit his lip, wondering at what he might have just revealed, but the three women - the maid, the housekeeper, and the cook - just stared at him quizzically, and so he gave them a nod and then walked from the kitchen as quickly as he reasonably could. He needed to sleep before he presented himself to Yeahman with his latest essay, and then, if he recalled correctly, he was expected to dine at his aunt’s, an engagement he was definitely not looking forward to.


	13. Chapter 13

The moment he entered the ball Daniel knew that the night would be far from pleasant. It has been a miserable two days and the misery, it seemed, was set to continue, for very second that their party exited the carriage the drizzling rain had increased to a raucous downpour and Daniel had been forced to strain his arm in order to shield Claire with his umbrella, yet she would hear no argument against her wide skirts, no matter how Daniel grumbled. He had tried to flatten his hair back from his face, spurred on by his retelling to Jones of the treacle incident, but the rain undid all of his good work and his curls were beginning to find their way across his brow before he had even reached the door. He looked less like a dashing Mr. Darcy and more like a homeless wild man, but was still forced to put up with two young ladies fluttering their fans at him before he had even made his first bow.

Upon their entrance in to the ostentatious house Daniel felt his mood sour even further as he saw his aunt lay eyes upon him and immediately cross the room in his direction. She had sent him a note earlier in the afternoon, telling him in no uncertain term, that she wished to speak with him that night and that no excuse would be deemed acceptable. It had successfully frightened Daniel in to a stupor. He had briefly wondered whether throwing himself down the stairs or coming to some other ‘accident’ would save him, but could not bring himself to do so. He was rather a coward if the truth were known and his recent time spent in Jones’ company convinced him that he really had no wish for a bruised ankle or broken ribs, which he would likely gain by throwing himself from the landing. His aunt would like as not come calling on him when he was helpless and unable to run away if he were in such a state and he wouldn’t be able to visit the House of Jones if he was injured and trapped in his bed, and that thought alone kept him from doing damage to his person, even if it did mean facing Aunt Tabitha.

“I have words to speak to you, Daniel,” she snapped, accosting him as soon as he had made it past the host and congratulated him on the size of the room. Claire had disappeared somewhere, which seemed rather unfair, and Daniel found himself being steered through the crowd by his aunt until he was ensconced in a corner with no chance of escape. “I received a letter from your father today, Daniel,” his aunt said with a smug smile, making up for the fact that she was stood barely taller than Daniel’s elbow with a stare that made him feel like he was once again a naughty boy refusing to speak politely to his elders. “He has started to feel that there is little point in giving you and your sister such a large living allowance when I now have the space in my home for you both. I have married off all of my children, very successfully, and your father would like to see your sister similarly settled. I do not need to remind you, I am sure, of how disappointed your father is at how little you have done with yourself. No expense was spared on your education and your father hoped you might be tempted to go in to politics, or the law. Anything, in fact, and yet all you have done is squander your father’s money and your youth. You showed such promise, Daniel,” she said with a shake of her head. “Now all we can hope for is a satisfactory, scandal free, marriage. Your father has given you one month, at the end of which you will either be married, proved yourself to be engaged in a pursuit worthy of your birth, or on your way home to Yorkshire. And at the month’s end, when you have proved yourself a useless drain on your father (as you no doubt will) Claire shall move herself to my home, and I shall find her a husband who will take her in hand and force her to give up her silly fancies.”

“But-“

“No, Daniel,” his aunt hissed forcefully, not seeming to care that she was reprimanding her nephew so publicly. “There shall be no ‘buts’, not this time. I promised my sister, your mother, that I would see her children well settled. I have promised your father some peace for his mind before he dies, which could well be very soon, according to his doctor.”

Daniel was taken aback at that. He was by no means close to the man but he had expected to hear from him personally if his health were deteriorating so rapidly. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at his aunt. She had no love for him and he could scarcely recall her having any love for her sister his mother when the woman had been alive. He could barely comprehend the idea of his mother worrying over his future - she had viewed her children as a personal inconvenience - but he could believe that his aunt might convince his father that his children were living like wastrels if it served her own purpose.

“Why would he not write to me himself?” he asked her, trying not to mumble, for she would only derail the conversation if he did, and he had never been much good at standing up to her, least of all when he was painfully sober and surrounded by such a large crowd. “If he is so concerned and as close to the end as you say, why would he write to you and not to me?”

“Perhaps because I took the time to write first to him,” she snapped with heavy judgement. “And perhaps because you have given him absolutely no proof over the last five years that you even recall how to write. Now do at least try to be likeable this evening. I have heard a rumour that the daughter of a French duke is to be in attendance tonight and while her falling for your charms may be ludicrously unlikely, I think it would be in your best interest to at least try, don’t you? I have been working hard on your behalf, Daniel. Do try not to be an embarrassment.”

Daniel watched her walk away and barely restrained the urge to wring the beastly woman’s neck. In just a handful of months he would be turning thirty years old and had hoped to receive an increase in his living allowance, instead he had nothing to look forward to but a return to his lonely home in the north, a fact which filled him with dread and gall. Nothing would set the London tongues wagging more than the return of the dour Mr. Ashcroft to the brooding moors, nothing except perhaps, any talk of Mr. Ashcroft changing his ways and trying his hand at wooing. He could stand neither option and the lack of any real choice made him feel ill. Claire would have words to say to him, he was sure, and no doubt she would find a way to make the whole situation Daniel’s fault rather than that of their interfering aunt and ageing, ever-paranoid father. 

It was all a horrid state of affairs and Daniel tried to make his way through the crowd without causing too much offence, though several ladies cried out that he crushed their dresses and two gentlemen exclaimed when he accidentally brushed against them. No one seemed to consider the possibility that Daniel was not being intentionally discourteous; rather that his body had grown so rapidly in his adolescence, and his shoulders so broad, that Daniel hadn’t been able to cope with the change, or to comprehend that he took up more space in the world than he imagined. His greatest wish was to avoid the proximity of others, not to knock himself haphazardly against them, yet no one considered such a possibility, they simply called him rude, and so Daniel hunched his shoulders as much as he was able and attempted to reach the exit. He never managed it, however, for just as he reached the main hall, his eyes met a pair of familiar ones, dark as midnight, and he stopped short as he heard the woman introduced: “Lady Sasha Le Tellier, youngest daughter of the Marquis de Louvois.”

Lady Sasha smiled as she dipped her head elegantly to Daniel, her eyes fixed upon his as he approached and gave her an awkward bow. At Yeahman’s party she had looked beautiful and quietly exotic, but there, in a dress of deep burgundy, surrounded by girls in insipid creams and lemons, she was truly stunning – a most aesthetically pleasing image - and Daniel felt at a loss for words to express such a truth to her. 

“Well, well,” she said softly, allowing Daniel to press her gloved hand to his lips, a sharp smile barely contained upon her own. “What a delight it is to see you again, my friend. A truly unexpected pleasure. But how shall I address you today, sir? As Pettifer or Ashcroft?”

“Ashcroft,” he answered as quietly as he could, aware that they were being watched by a great many, and that his cheeks, as ever, were giving him away by their colour. “If you would be so kind.”

“But of course,” Lady Sasha nodded. “You are hardly the only one here who enjoys attending a rather different kind of party and wishes to keep the fact hidden.” She took his arm and allowed him to guide her through the crowd, which somehow parted to allow them to pass, a feat that would certainly never have occurred for Daniel alone. 

He heard the whispering and fought to keep his face impassive as he moved through the split sea of party-goers, but could easily understand their awe. No woman could match the Lady Sasha for beauty and the only stain on the image was the presence of Daniel on her arm, for it very much felt to Daniel that he somehow occupied the lesser position in the tableau, no matter that his new housekeeper had done her best in making him presentable.

They walked in silence until Sasha deemed she had found a position that suited her, where she could watch the dancing and where her gown and silhouette could be best admired but she did not immediately drop Daniel’s arm, and he found that he felt quite at ease in her company.

“And what brings you here, my lady?”

She shrugged, the cut of her dress showing her delicate shoulders and turning the simple action in to something sensuous. 

“Why do any of us attend a ball? To be seen, to make introductions. What other reason can there be?”

Daniel grunted. “Perhaps because am interfering aunt has demanded it and threatened to have one packed off to the north of the country if one fails to comply with her conniving, match making, schemes.”

Even as he said the words Daniel expected to be rebuked for speaking so harshly of his elderly relative, but Lady Sasha only looked amused, glancing at him through long dark lashes.

“That is certainly one of the other options, though it is less readily admitted to,” she said with humour, gazing out at the room as she spoke. “And I can quite believe it, having heard your sister rail against her aunt already. Did she tell you that I called? It was rather improper of me, perhaps, but I was concerned for you. And your being still absent when I came by your house did little to quell my unease.”

The rebuke was very gentle but it still brought a level of shame bubbling up through Daniel’s ribs. He should have penned a note to her, thanking her for her visit and apologising for his absence and his behaviour, but hadn’t thought of it. It was just one of so many social niceties that he failed to think of.

“My apologies, Lady Sasha,” he said to the floor, “for giving you such cause for concern. And for making such an unacceptable display in front of your person, it was quite unacceptable and I have given my apologies to the Yeahman’s and-“

“Not at all,” Lady Sasha said, smiling, halting his rambling words and spiraling self-loathing with a flick of her wrist. “Why do you think I attend such parties? Nothing of interest happens at balls such as this, but at a party given by publishers and editors, attended by writers and actors and artists and others of that ilk, the entertainment is far livelier. And your sister sent me a note to assure me that you did eventually make it home. She is a very entertaining young woman, I must say.”

Daniel startled at that, for it was not a description usually given to his sister, and Lady Sasha seemed to be a person of such refinement. Then again, he reminded himself, she seemed to be perfectly at ease in his unfortunate acquaintance so there was no telling what she deemed entertaining company. It was possibly a fault in the translation, or perhaps a difference in culture. There was a chance that sullen men who stared at their own boots whilst talking were considered the soul of wit in Paris, and headstrong women with thick, ever-furrowed brows the height of fashion, but Daniel considered it unlikely. 

“My sister, Claire?” he asked, for confirmation. “You found her entertaining?”

“Indeed, Mr. Ashcroft,” she acknowledged with a nod and delicately raised brow. “I have few acquaintances in London, and fewer friends. I would like the opportunity to know her better. I appreciated her intelligence and her forthright manner. She has such passion for life that brings such pleasure and I would very much like to indulge it.”

Her words were strangely cryptic, or so it seemed to Daniel, as if she meant a great deal more by such words than she was willing to say, and Daniel noted the way she drew her bottom lip in between her teeth, almost hungrily. She seemed rather desperate for a female companion and Daniel supposed she missed her sisters, and so nodded thoughtfully.

“I shall let her know as soon as I see her,” he informed the lady earnestly. “I am sure she will be greatly honoured and shall ask you to the house to dine with us, at your earliest convenience.”

The smile Lady Sasha gave him in return seemed rather amused but she thanked him graciously and was just beginning to turn the conversation to the topic of dancing when a young lady approached them in a whirl of pink crinoline, her chin raised haughtily in Daniel’s direction. It took him a long moment to place her, and she stood before them both as if waiting to be properly acknowledged, but all Daniel could remember about her was that she was the daughter of one of his aunt’s friends and had been the young lady who had most recently sought to turn his heart by insulting his person and proclaiming that she never wished to marry him. He gave her a very small bow but did not speak, for he had no wish to engage her in conversation, but the lady seemed adamant that she would talk to him and began doing so before Lady Sasha could even offer an introduction.

“Why Mr. Ashcroft,” she said with an attempt at a haughty glare, “you do transfer your allegiance swiftly, it seems. Your aunt gave me to understand that I could depend upon your company tonight and your hand in the dancing, and yet I have been forced to seek you out. I had not thought your head so easily turned, and to one so... foreign. It could be considered rather unpatriotic, don’t you think?” 

Daniel stared at her in confusion, utterly bemused by her words and how affronted she seemed when they were no more than strangers. His aunt had a hand in this, he was sure. She had been trying to secure him a wife and now some poor girl of barely eighteen would get her heart broken for it, but Daniel knew no way to fix such a misunderstanding without also ensuring further insult.

Lady Sasha turned to address the young woman, who for the first time since Daniel had been unwillingly introduced to her, seemed genuinely put out by Daniel’s behaviour rather than simply amused by it, if her flared nostrils and rapid breathing were anything to go by.

“I do beg your pardon,” she said with the greatest ease, her accent thickening a little, or so it seemed to Daniel, “but I do not believe we have had the pleasure of being introduced. Mr. Ashcroft, if you would be so kind?” 

Daniel scowled, unable to treat the girl with the sort of genteel grace that Lady Sasha had, and his words came out bluntly. 

“Would that I could, my lady, but in truth I have quite forgot her name. There are so many young ladies after her fashion and we have met only briefly. You must forgive me for not recalling the name of one I know so little.”

The young woman in question made a choked sound and when Daniel glanced in her direction her eyes and mouth were opened wide and her cheeks were stained a pink to match her ridiculous dress. She gave one scandalised look in Lady Sasha’s direction (as if she had not insulted the lady herself seconds before) and then turned quickly in a swirl of skirts and all but ran from the crowded room.

Far too many people watched her go, even the dancers ceased their movement, so it seemed, and when Lady Sasha turned to address him her voice seemed to carry too far - a broadcast to any who wished to listen.

“Why, that poor girl! I do hope she is not unwell, she seemed ready to faint and it is decidedly warm in here. I must go at once to see that she is alright. But Mr. Ashcroft,” she said with a delicate hand on his arm. “I must inform you that my dance card is sadly free. And I do so love the waltz.”

She waited, watching him, her eyes sharp and expression quizzical, and Daniel’s eyes flickered about the room, noticing that they were most definitely being observed and that the worst of the gossips were already whispering behind their palms. He needed to respond but the idea of asking Lady Sasha to dance filled him with dread. He did not want to display for her his terrible clumsiness, or to put her at risk of ridicule by being partnered with someone who so greatly impinged her graceful movements. Yet the words of his aunt circled through his head, the threat of a return to his childhood home and the intense isolation that caused his heart to race in fear. He knew he was considered unsociable, he was far from adept at speaking to others, and struggled to enjoy the company of most people, but he loved London, and couldn’t stand the thought of being locked away from its noise. Even on those occasions when he did hate London he didn’t want to leave, he wanted it to change, to grow, to be better. He railed against the foolish people of the capital and the filthy city and it’s filthy habits, but in Yorkshire he could do little more than howl at the empty fields, and it filled him with terror.

He looked up at Lady Sasha, whose lips had been drawn upwards in a questioning, if subtle, smile, feeling his throat tighten. She appeared to like him, bizarre as that seemed, and he could use that, if he dared, to secure his allowance, and remain in London and away from Yorkshire. He could use her, if he dared.

“It would be my greatest honour, Lady Sasha, if you would promise me the waltz? If you find it convenient to yourself.”

“I believe I shall, Mr. Ashcroft,” she told him with a triumphant smile. “As soon as I have spoken to the young lady.”

She gave the most poised curtsy Daniel had ever seen before turning away, and as he watched her depart, off to console the young lady Daniel had unwittingly offended, he felt a mixture of distress and trepidation. He had no desire to hurt anyone, not truly, and certainly not Lady Sasha, but could see no other option. Worse than that, he had no idea how to waltz; it had been considered too risqué, too modern, when he had been young and tutored in such things, and feared the rebuke he would face from his sister and his aunt when he stumbled and embarrassed himself, and potentially drove away the woman who actually seemed to tolerate him. 

Feeling greatly overwhelmed Daniel plucked a glass of wine from a passing tray and attempted to retreat from view, at least until Lady Sasha returned. His mind was circling and spiraling too quickly for him to manage and he felt a great desire for genuine companionship. How glorious it would be, he mused, to have a friend who he could go to with such problems and have by his side to guide him through situations that his own poor soul was not created to cope with. By the time he had finished the last drop of wine within his grasp, Daniel Ashcroft had resolved to return to the House of Jones at his earliest convenience and request once again, and with greater force, that Mr. Jones accept the position of valet within his home. A shiver passed silently through him at such the thought but he squashed it down quickly; there was no time for such confusion of spirit or uncertain stirrings. He needed a valet: a man who could offer him an honest opinion, a man who could most likely teach him to dance, and a man who could stand his company, and a man who could guide him through the process of wooing and winning the Lady Sasha. He needed a man, and he was sure that Jones was the one.


End file.
